Itinit walked along a broken, partially overgrown path that led up a slope covered with dense forest.
"Somewhere up there, these sticks with leaves must end," Itinit looked at the crowns of tree ferns that almost completely covered the sky. "But it is unlikely to be here. This mountain is too low."
The path, or rather what was left of it, led the guy to a stone pillar with symbols carved into it. Most of them were almost erased, and those that remained seemed incomprehensible.
"What is this? I think I went to school, but I don't remember this... I can take a picture and then decipher it. I hope at least Sanachan knows what is written here."
Itinit opened the virtual screen to summon the camera, but suddenly heard the sound of an incoming message.
"The bad connection always makes the messages arrive at the wrong time. I hope Tuot wasn't eaten. Otherwise, this would be the stupidest message in the world."
Instead of the camera, Itinit opened the messenger, but the messages did not come from Tuot at all:
"The cookies here are not tasty. I want a meat pie, but it's locked in the refrigerator and won't come out. I want it! I want it very much. I also want to meet my sis. Every night I look at the sky and wait for her to appear. But sis does not appear. I want her to appear, so I will want her until I burn out."
"It's Kimchan," Itinit sighed. "It's just Kimchan."
After a few moments, the creator of the dog girls realized that something was wrong.
"I will want her until I burn out"...
"Kimchan is just joking," Itinit decided. "She can't burn out, can she? But she doesn't know that. I know that, but she doesn't. So she's not joking? No, something's wrong here."
Itinit forgot about the pole and walked up the slope. Many thoughts were spinning in the head of the creator of the dog girls, sometimes meeting, and sometimes rushing parallel to each other.
At some point, Itinit noticed that he was standing in front of a stone arch and heard the noise of a waterfall ahead.
"Kimchan has some kind of plan. She wants to meet Noru, but in a way that I would organize it. It's strange. Although, what else would you expect from half of a character? When Sanachan divided Noruluya, I didn't know that their abilities, character traits, and abilities were also divided. But Noru and Kimchan's abilities are almost the same. Maybe their abilities are the same too? Noruluya seemed to be smarter, but I don't remember exactly. How difficult is that."
Itinit passed through the arch and somehow found himself in the cave. Thoughts again attacked the guy's brain, and he was able to move away from them only at the sight of a doll with black hair that was sitting near the wall on fern leaves.
She wasn't wearing any clothes. Her long black hair partially covered her face and fell to her chest, where it was divided into many strands, tangled together. Her thick legs, one bent at the knee and the other lying straight, reminded Itinit of a doll with pink hair, wearing only chains.
"Hey, Itinit, help me untangle my hair," the doll's voice seemed all too familiar to the creator of the dog girls.
"What?" "Itinit shuddered and looked from head to toe of the creature.
The "doll's" face turned out to be quite human, with lively, not "glassy" eyes. Even the eyebrows moved a little.
"You…" Itinit turned away.
"Yes, I'm Halankuo," the "doll" introduced herself. "You didn't recognize me?"
"I thought you were a doll."
"So you saw the dolls. That's crazy."
"Yeah, it's better not to talk about it."
Itinit looked at his friend, but this time he paid attention not to her legs or chest, but to her hair.
"Hey, don't look at me like that," Halankuo blushed. "I can't even move."
The girl told what happened to her and why she was in this place. Itinit looked around and then went into the next room.
"Uh, again there's no one to comb me," Halankuo sighed.
"Maybe you'll get lucky," a voice in the girl's head intervened. "According to statistics, this should be the case."
But in practice, Halankuo could only look at the passage to the other room and wait for her friend to return.
But Itinit did not return. Halankuo remembered that in the other room there was a passage to the forest. The girl tried to get up, but could only move her breast.
"No wonder Itinit mistook me for a doll," Halankuo thought. "I can't even stand up. I shouldn't have activated my aura."
"Without the aura, you could have broken. You're not a doll. You have a real body, and it's disposable."
"You answered like a doll. Were you really human?"
"Of course, I was able to escape from my parents. But you won't convince Sitihi of that. Don't even try."
"Yup, you're not a doll. Dolls think differently. You think like a human."
While Halankuo was talking to the voice in her head, Itinit returned from the other room, but not by himself, but with his feathered friend, whom he held by the tail.
"Let go, I'm not your animal girl!" Tuot shouted.
"Sorry," Itinit let go of the dinosaur's tail. "It's a habit of mine."
This scene made Halankuo smile. Now her face truly resembled a human one, although her body still did not want to move.
Itinit let go of his friend's tail. Tuot felt relieved and immediately noticed the thick legs lying on the floor. The dinosaur opened his mouth, but then looked up and saw who the "food" belonged to.
"Halankuo, I..." Tuot turned away.
"You couldn't find my T-shirt?" the smile was still on the girl's face.
"Yup," the dinosaur nodded. "It fell into the river, and it was carried away too far."
"It's okay," Halankuo stopped smiling. "I still have a lot of clothes in my inventory. True, not all of it is suitable for this continent. It's too hot there, although here, near the waterfall, it's just warm."
"I'm fine," Itinit looked at the girl's upper thigh, where it met her buttocks. "You just have a lot of fat."
Tuot turned his tail towards his mistress and childhood friend, as he could no longer help but think about food. Halankuo blushed, but could do nothing, only slightly turned her head to the side.
"Don't look at me like that," the girl said almost in a whisper. "I can't even turn away."
"You don't have to turn away," Itinit turned his gaze to the girl's hair. "You're cute."
"Is it true?" Halankuo blushed even more.
"Like a doll," Itinit continued.
Halankuo sighed, her breast "agreed" with her.
"What's happened?" Itinit asked.
"One of my friends likes animal girls, and the other one seems to like dolls. Why don't I have any normal friends?"
"Nothing," Halankuo closed her eyes. "Just untangle my hair."
Itinit approached his friend and began to examine the thick web of long, wet black hair.
"It seems to me that it's easier to untangle the cobwebs in an abandoned house. I'll have to..."
"No, you can't cut it," Halankuo answered quietly. "I won't be myself without hair."
"You sound like a doll. If your hair means so much to you, why haven't you brushed it?"
"I forgot..." Halankuo tilted her head.
Itinit looked at Tuot's hands, with three fingers on each.
"Maybe you could comb it? Your hands are better suited for that."
"I can't even hold those pieces of wood for food with them," Tuot answered.
"But you somehow hold the sword."
"I have only one sword. I can only hold one thing with three fingers."
Itinit grabbed one of the strands with his hand and pulled it towards himself. Halankuo did not make a sound. Itinit sat down and noticed that the girl's eyes were closed.
"Halankuo is sleeping. Maybe I should cut off some of her hair? Of course, she'll notice when she wakes up, but you could say Tuot did it."
The plan seemed to be working. Itinit brought the hilt of his "sword" to the lump of hair, but did not call upon the energy.
"Tuot, call upon the sword," Itinit asked.
"Why?" the dinosaur tilted its head to the right.
"It's part of the plan."
"You're trying to drag me into something bad."
"No. I actually have a plan."
Itinit was not lying. Of course, Tuot did not know what the cunning plan was, but he understood that the sword was cutting something, and therefore it was not worth calling upon unless absolutely necessary.
"There are no dolls here," Tuot looked in different directions. "And there's no flying penguin with antennas either. Itinit, what are you planning?"
"You have become too smart."
Itinit decided to call upon the aura to cut off the clump of hair, but at that moment Halankuo opened her mouth:
"You called Tuot smart? He's grown up. He was really stupid as a kid. He ate meat in packaging, tried to eat my legs. He even bit my neck. It's good that he was small and had teeth, too..."
Halankuo couldn't continue. She lowered her head and stopped showing any signs of activity. Itinit realized that this was his chance and finally activated his aura. But he didn't have time to cut off the tangled hair – the vibration woke up the girl.
"It's too early. If I had waited a little longer, Halankuo would have slept better."
"Little..." the girl continued speaking in a sleepy voice. "He was very funny when he chewed the pillow..."
Halankuo's eyes closed. Itinit deactivated his aura and decided to abandon the idea of solving the problem by force.
"Theoretically, you can change the characteristics of the hair so that it is not so thick and stiff. But this can only be done with dolls and only in the "Mausoleum of Nature". Also, I don't know how to turn a person into a doll. For this, you need to install something additional, but I don't even know where to get it."
For a moment, Itinit imagined Halankuo with pink hair, and then he felt uneasy.
"How can I even think about this? No, it's better to leave it as is. When Halankuo wakes up, I'll tell her that I did everything possible."
Itinit stood up and walked towards the main exit of the shelter.
"Where are you going?" Tuot's voice rang out.
Itinit turned around and noticed that the dinosaur was looking at him and didn't understand anything.
"I couldn't do anything," the creator of the dog girls admitted. "Some options are not suitable, and others are too bad for Halankuo. She won't accept it."
"I thought you were smart and could solve everything," Tuot turned to the wall so as not to see either his friend or the "food."
"Once upon a time I thought so too. But after the fight with Myuryuri, I realized that I can't do everything. More precisely, nothing depends on me."
Tuot shuddered, and then carefully looked towards the main entrance, where his friend was standing.
"Then I saw how nothing depended on Myuryuri," Itinit continued. "He could only stall for time, like I did against him. It sounds funny, but it's actually sad."
"Why?" Tuot bowed his head. "If nothing depends on you, you can just hide and wait."
"Then I'll be like you." But I'm not a dinosaur. I'm a person, and a living person, not a doll. For a doll, what I said now is not important. But for a person, it's important that his problems are solved. He can't just wait for them to solve themselves. More precisely, maybe, but it's sad."
"Ahh... now it's clear. People are very different from dinosaurs."
Tuot looked at Halankuo and miraculously did not notice what he usually noticed right away. He saw the long black eyelashes that covered the eyelids and was so surprised by this that he opened his mouth and stopped breathing for a few moments.
"Is that really Halankuo?" Tuot shook his head. "Her hair is growing in front of her eyes. But the face is like hers. Was I just not noticing what was right in front of me?"
The dinosaur shifted his gaze to the hair that was intertwined on the girl's chest, then to his wing, and suddenly realized something.
"Itinit," Tuot looked at his elbow. "I know how to do it."
"What?" Itinit even turned around.
Tuot didn't answer. A shield appeared on his elbow, and the dinosaur pressed its claw against the black symbol on it.
"He's trying to summon a lizard," Itinit thought. "But she has no abilities that could help."
Tuot pointed his hand with the shield forward, but did not let go of the claw. Soon the symbol activated with a purple glow, and Itinit realized that this was not a lizard summoning at all. A clot of wind appeared in the dinosaur's hand, swirling in a circle.
"Where did he get an air skill from?" Itinit was surprised. "Did he listen to my advice and learn something elemental so he wouldn't have to rely on the energy aura? No, that's too difficult for him. Most likely, this skill was accidentally activated during a fight with an enemy. Perhaps it's related to his shield."
Meanwhile, the wind clot inflated itself and finally burst out...
Itinit noticed a blue translucent wall of energy barrier in front of him, behind which a stream of air was circulating.
"Still, Tuot didn't become smart," the creator of the dog girls sighed. "If it weren't for my passive skill, I'd be flying somewhere over the forest right now."
As soon as this thought left Itinit's brain, the barrier wall began to flicker.
"I forgot that the passive barrier is too weak. And I won't have time to create a new barrier."
The barrier wall disappeared, but Itinit managed to move his index finger in front of him and summon an energy wall, which helped him withstand the onslaught of the wind.
The storm ended as suddenly as it had begun. Itinit deactivated the barrier with a downward movement of his hand and finally saw his friends.
Halankuo was lying on the floor. Her hair was not only neatly styled, but also dried. The girl's eyes were closed, but the fingers on her hands were moving slowly. Tuot was lying near the opposite wall, which bordered the next room, and, unlike his owner and childhood friend, was completely unconscious.
***
"Now we'll check who has bigger breasts, you or her," Kitachi pressed her finger on the mini-head of a doll with pink hair, in a white mask without holes for the eyes and mouth.
"Last time it was the same," Nyonyokyo said. "That's why I was able to defeat her, even though we battled on equal terms. I don't know what will happen now."
"Will you battle her?" Sitihi asked.
"No," Nyonyokyo answered. "Only my breasts will participate in the battle – on my side, and her breasts – on her side. Whoever has the larger ones will win."
At first, Sitihi did not understand the words of the crypt keeper, but everything changed when a doll with pink hair appeared on the threshold of the room, wearing a mask without holes for eyes and mouth. Her feet did not touch the floor, so her footsteps were not heard.
Nyonyokyo immediately turned her attention to the healing doll and began to turn her head to check how powerful her "weapon" was. But this was not enough. The breast of the "enemy" was partially hidden by two nut shells the size of a human head.
A skirt of large oval leaves reached to the middle of her thighs, and from it a green liana stretched up to her navel, which then continued to her shoulders and joined her pink hair there.
Nyonokyo disappeared, and a moment later, she appeared upside down above the healing doll. From this angle, she could assess the strength of the "enemy", but she did not take into account something important.
The long purple hair, although lighter than real black human hair, still obeyed the force of gravity and covered the face, so the doll did not have enough moments to assess the strength of the "enemy".
The "enemy" soon took advantage of this. Toloruchan pointed her hand at Nyonokyo. The body of the purple-haired doll remained "hanging" in the air upside down, while her own hair covered her face and prevented her pupils from activating.
"Who won?" Sitihi asked.
"I didn't understand," Nyonyokyo answered. "Something went wrong."
"If you look at this fight as a normal one, then Toloruchan will win," Kitachi noted. "But this is no ordinary fight. This is a battle of the power of the dolls."
Toloruchan heard the words of the crypt keeper, but since she could not speak, she summoned a virtual screen with a wave of her hand and swiped her finger across it.
On a white background in a blue frame appeared a girl with long purple hair, a bandage on her nose, cow horns and breasts almost to her knees, and above it was an inscription in pink characters:
"This is Nyonyokyo from another world."