The battle continued in the ruins. The remains of the pink-haired doll that Noru had destroyed lay all over the location and emitted a pink glow.
Itinit stood on a stone block and recalled the words of a familiar doll - the older sister of that very man with a carrot nose:
"We must not let her assemble herself. Gradually, she will run out of energy and will become inactive. This is the only way to defeat the healing doll."
"In theory, that's true," Itinit looked around. "If the remains were all in one place, it would be easy. But now I just can't find them. It's good that Noru is with me. It's strange to think that way, of course, but I have to."
Itinit created an energy chain in front of him with balls of sparks strung on it. Soon after, a fireball fell from the sky and turned into a dog girl.
"Master, the dolls are coming here," Noru looked at her creator with fear and tucked her tail between her legs.
"How many are there?" Itinit asked.
Noru held up two fingers, closed one eye, and stuck out her tongue.
"This is no time to make faces," Itinit said. "Hold them off until reinforcements arrive."
Noru seemed to evaporate. Only a few sparks remained in her place, which were then scattered by the wind.
Itinit pointed the balls forward with his hand, then opened a virtual screen and wrote in the chat.
"I hope. Etinnei and Tuot didn't go far."
Several explosions thundered in different parts of the ruins. Itinit rolled up the screen, and then jumped off the stone block, and...
... He heard a quick crack of lightning behind him.
Itinit activated the energy aura, jumped a few steps forward and turned around, but found nothing.
"I heard the sound of lightning. Did I imagine it?"
Itinit walked around the stone block, but found nothing but gray fragments of ancient structures.
"I have to get back to the doll's remains. I can't let her reassemble."
Itinit turned back to go to the supposed place where one of the enemy's body parts had fallen, but suddenly collided with something purple.
"It's a doll," Itinit jumped back a few steps.
The creature that stood in front of the guy was indeed a doll. Long purple hair went behind her back and revealed an apron-armor made of dark blue rubber plates, which barely accommodated the unnaturally large doll chest. The nose was almost completely covered by a blue bandage, which gave the creature an extremely strange appearance.
"You are a stranger," the doll said. "What are you doing near our crypt?"
Itinit did not answer, as he did not understand the enemy's words. He was too busy with his usual business.
Unfortunately, this was not what the doll needed. She extended her hand forward, and the next moment a white and blue electric bird landed on her palm.
"Who are you?" the doll asked. "I am Nyonyokyo, and this is my bird that will shock you if it hits you. So tell me who you are and what you are doing here. If my sis comes, I will even let you live, maybe not very alive, but..."
Itinit did not react to the doll's words or to the electric bird on her hand. He simply stood there and slowly moved his gaze from his hips up the apron-armor made of dark blue rubber plates, until he finally stopped at the parts of his chest that were peeking out from under the suit.
"Judging by your gaze, you are assessing my strength," Nyonyokyo said. "When my sis comes, you will look at her and tell me which of us is stronger."
Itinit did not answer, but that was enough for the doll. She waved her hand, and the electric bird dispersed into the air.
"She has a sister," Itinit's interest in the enemy grew. "I wonder if they are more alike than the other dolls."
Soon, the opportunity presented itself. From somewhere above, a doll with pink hair, surrounded by a purple aura, descended to the surface next to Nyonokyo. Her face was covered by a white mask without holes.
"This is Toloruchan, my twin sis," Nyonokyo introduced her ally. "Now she has come, and you can tell who is stronger."
Itinit looked at the new doll's legs to examine the creature from the bottom up, as he usually did, but then he heard a plaintive dog moan from behind and was distracted.
"Noru," Itinit suddenly remembered that he was the creator of this character and turned around.
The dog girl froze in the air in a pose that was too natural for her species. Her arms were raised at chin level, her palms were bent, and her legs were motionless, like a doll's. Her tongue hung from her open mouth, foam running down it.
Itinit immediately realized what was happening and threw an empty energy ball into the air. The pink-haired doll had to shift her gaze to the new flying object and let go of her "prey".
Noru began to fall, but a step away from the stone surface of the ruins, she turned into a fireball that flew towards her creator.
"Master, sit on me," a high, hoarse voice came from behind Itinit. "This doll cannot look at you."
But Itinit did not hear the character's words. He was busy looking at the healing doll.
"She looks like the doll I met on the island, the one Noru broke," Itinit's gaze reached the creature's face. "But she's not her. She's not mine, the one and only."
Itinit had already given up hope of meeting that doll, but he accidentally looked to the side and saw the end of the chain dangling in the air. This was enough to understand who was in front of him.
"Here she is," Itinit saw strands of pink hair that touched bare legs wrapped in chains. "She finally came to me to…"
Itinit's gaze rose higher and stopped at her breast, which was tied with chains like a box and partially covered by hair.
"...to kill me."
Itinit looked up to see the face of the one and only, but at the decisive moment the view was blocked by a flash of fire...
"Noru, why..."
A large brown dog with a fiery aura, similar to a bear, rose above the ruins and carried Itinit away.
"Aw…" Noru answered.
"You shouldn't worry about me so much," the creator of the dog girls answered. "I won't give Kimchan back just because you want me to."
"Aw... Raw!"
"Okay, I will, but later. First we need to deal with the dolls. They can fly."
The elemental aura around Noru expanded, and then the dog suddenly moved forward and flew over the forest at the speed of a comet.
The dolls, despite Itinit's fears, did not pursue him, but remained in the ruins.
"He never said which of us was stronger," Nyonyokyo looked at her twin sister with eyes that were supposed to express something, but did not.
A blue virtual screen with a white background and black symbols appeared above Toloruchan's head:
"Why did you attack this creature?"
"He is not our relative," Nyonokyo explained. "I promised not to battle our people if they entered the crypt or walked near it, but this man does not look like any of us."
The symbols on the screen were erased and new ones took their place.
"What?" Nyonokyo read the text. "He looks like that one? Are you sure?"
The text changed again. Nyonyokyo read it and then looked at Yuehei who was gradually landing.
"Do you know him too?"
A screen similar to the one Toloruchan had appeared in front of Yuehei, but with one difference – the text was replaced by a black silhouette of a humanoid creature with small rounded ears on a large head.
"Let's pretend I didn't say anything," Nyonyokyo looked at the forest. "Do you agree?"
Several red pulsating symbols appeared on the screens.
"Then take off your heads so you can forget what I told you," Nyonyokyo's pupils turned purple. "I'll put them back later."
***
Tuot and Etinnei were sitting in the dense forest on a thick moss-covered log that blocked a small river. The Arctic fox girl was kicking her foot in the water and looking at a fat black centipede crawling along the trunk of a fern, and her feathered friend was admiring the reflection of his favorite character with his mouth open.
"Tuot, I remembered something," Etinnei said.
"Is it something scary?" the dinosaur shuddered, but continued to look at the water.
"I don't know if it's scary for you or not. It's a skull."
Tuot winced again, but then remembered Sanachan showing him the skull of a three-horned dinosaur and telling him he needed to know something about it.
"You... saw it?" Tuot still did not take his eyes off the reflection of the Arctic fox girl.
"Yup," Etinnei kicked the water, causing a dark green, toothy fish to fly out for a moment. "It's a very strange place. I don't remember where it was, but there was a cow girl guarding it. That creature was in my dream, the one Minniges showed me. I met her couple of times. The first time she was kind, and the second time she tried to kill me."
"Cow girl," Tuot remembered the horned statue at the Tohsonun train station, and even opened his mouth to tell his friend, but the sound of an incoming message interrupted everything.
The dinosaur had to summon the screen and enter the chat, where a message from Itinit was waiting for him.
"What is it?" Etinnei looked at her friend's screen.
Tuot felt the arctic fox girl's hair touch his feathers and instinctively jumped two steps to the side.
"Itinit is calling us," the dinosaur said calmly. "He writes that some new dolls have appeared in the ruins."
"There are a lot of dolls there," Etinnei lifted her leg and looked at it. "Where do they come from a hole?"
"Yup, Itinit and I were inside, and we met a doll. We had to battle twice before it let us go."
"Did you defeat her?"
"Yup, but she fought somehow not seriously. I think she's actually much stronger."
Etinnei put her foot in the water. Tuot heard a splash and realized that he had to get out of here. But the forest around seemed too impassable and endless...
"Do you know how to get to the seashore?" Tuot asked.
"No," Etinnei moved her arctic fox ears. "But you can look at the map and find out."
"It is possible, but this forest is too similar. We will not find the sea, even if we use maps."
"Yup, there are many incomprehensible things here. But the Southern Continent is not all like this. In some places there are no forests, and they do not interfere."
Tuot imagined a rocky desert with acidic lakes that began right behind the blue-green mountains in the depths of the continent, and almost bit his tongue.
Etinnei opened the map and quickly found her location. The river on the bank of which she was sitting flowed straight into the sea so close that the arctic fox girl had to zoom in to see it.
"We're almost there," Etinnei looked happily at her friend.
"But there's no sea here," Tuot objected.
"It's strange. On the map the sea is nearby, but it's not visible from here. I think if we go along the river, we'll come to it."
Tuot looked around and found that the forest around him was too dense to see anything at a distance, and the noise from the water drowned out any possible sounds of the sea waves.
The dinosaur and his friend walked along the rocky bank of the river along the current. Several times, fern branches and bushes blocked their path, but were destroyed by the arctic fox girl's icicle faster than Tuot could find them.
At some point, the forest parted, and instead of endless leaves and trunks, an equally endless gray-blue sea appeared.
"Tuot, we came out somewhere wrong," Etinnei yawned.
"What?"
The dinosaur looked ahead and realized that he was standing on a high cliff, and the river, which had recently flowed nearby, now fell down like a high waterfall and disappeared into the sea foam.
Tuot was overcome by a fear he had not felt for a long time. The dinosaur tried to jump away, but neither his legs nor his wings obeyed him.
"Tuot, you're going to fall now," Etinnei jumped back a step.
The dinosaur heard his friend's words, but he could not answer. He simply looked down with his mouth open and understood that one accidental movement would throw him into the sea.
"I've always wondered what would happen to a living creature if you threw it into the water." Etinnei thought at that moment. "Maybe I should check? I'll just push Tuot a little, and then I'll say that it just happened that way."
Fortunately, there was no need to check. Something between a boat and a bird flew up to the cliff, surrounded by a purple energy aura.
"If you're going to jump, then you'd better jump here," a voice said from the flying machine.
... A few dozen moments later, Tuot and Etinnei were sitting in the back seat of the "metal bird" that was flying along the coast.
"I just have to pick up Halankuo and her character," the voice from the front seat continued. "But I'm afraid there won't be enough room here. I'll have to leave one of you on this continent."
Etinnei looked at Tuot, who had only just recovered from the shock and was able to understand speech again.
"I'll stay with Etinnei," the dinosaur looked at his friend. "I'm afraid myself. She even knows the animals on this continent."
A barely noticeable laugh was heard from behind the front seat. The Arctic fox girl turned to the window.
"What's happened?" Tuot couldn't understand.
"I was joking," Itinit's head appeared from behind the front seat. "You're taking things too seriously that are obvious even to your animal friend."
"You humans always say weird things," Tuot looked out the window. "That's why I have to take things seriously. What if I don't notice something and get eaten? That would be stupid."
"You're right," Itinit agreed. "It's better to react to something suspicious in time than to ignore it and become food. It's a typical position for a wild animal. By the way, animals are not allowed in this aircraft."
Tuot opened his mouth in surprise and was about to answer something, but then he heard a growing growl below.
"Hey, master, are you going to throw me out?" the dog girl's head popped out from under the seat.
Tuot's heart stopped for a moment, his head spun, and only the back of the front seat kept the dinosaur from falling to the floor.
"That's a good idea," Itinit answered. "You can fly, so you can follow the "metal bird". In fact, the rules do prohibit transporting animals of other species in such transport. There is no seat for animals."
"Is this a joke again?" Etinnei asked.
"No, that's actually true," Itinit answered. "All the seats here are for humanoid creatures. Of course, I didn't do anything to Kimchan when she turned into a dog, and I won't do anything to Tuot, even though his tail doesn't fit in the cabin."
At that moment, Tuot felt better, but then he realized the last phrase about the tail and got scared.
The dinosaur tried to turn around, but could only turn his head a little.
"Don't be afraid, there is a special slot for your tail in the design of this thing," Itinit explained.
"There was something long at the back," Tuot recalled the long tail of the flying machine.
"Yeah," Itinit answered. "Your tail will be tucked in there. The seat has a back, but there is also a special slot for tails. The designers of flying machines are required to make such things for dinosaurs, so that they can fly on them."
The "metal bird" reached the low sandy shore of the sea and began to descend, but the sudden barking of a dog made Itinit stop landing.
"What is it, Noru?" Itinit asked. "Did you see anything edible?"
"Maybe it's edible for you, master, but not for the animal girls..." Noru looked out the side window.
Itinit also looked out the side of the window and saw three heads with colored hair sticking out of the sand.
"This looks like a bad place to land," decided the creator of the dog girls. "We need to look for another place."
"They're buried there for a reason," Noru said. "I can't feel the energy, but it's weird. If my sis were here, she might feel it better."