"What signal?" Unana asked.
"The signal that controls creatures," Itinit explained. "In fact, it is a complex process that is influenced by different characteristics, but if we speak simply, it will be something like this. In the brain of a creature there are thoughts. They are converted into a signal and transmitted to another brain through antennas."
"Is that the thing a person with a carrot nose has?" Yueret asked.
Unana shuddered, and then climbed up onto the bed with her feet. The toy squirrel was pinned to the bed by the girl's buttocks and squealed loudly, causing Unana to jump, turn around in the air and summon a small bow with a purple energy arrow.
Meanwhile, the conversation continued.
"Do you know Kuttanai?" Itinit asked.
"Yes," Yueret answered. "I met him once, but even then I realized that he controlled the dolls with a carrot-shaped antenna."
"You got it right. Kuttanai recently lost his antenna and now wants to restore it."
"What?" Unana fell onto the bed with a toy squirrel in her hands instead of a bow.
"Don't be afraid, he's too far," Itinit said. "He's on the Southern Continent, and I'm there too."
"You should be worried," Yueret noted.
"Perhaps he won't succeed," Itinit closed his eyes. "But I hope in vain. This Kuttanai has a little sister. She's a healing doll. The whole problem is with her."
Yueret remembered how the carrot-nosed man had summoned a pink-haired doll and named her his little sister. Now the brother was no different from his frightened little sister who sat next to him.
"It looks like I scared you, although I should be talking about something completely different," Itinit opened his eyes. "In fact, you have nothing to be afraid of. I have a team that will finish off this Kuttanai or at least lock him up somewhere."
Yueret looked at his sister. Unana squeezed the toy squirrel in fear, which squeaked again...
"It seems I shouldn't have mentioned that doll," Itinit thought on the other end of the screen.
"What are you doing, master?" a voice came from behind.
Itinit thought he had found a quiet spot near the wall on the edge of the ruins, but this voice proved otherwise.
"There's someone there," the voice continued. "I smell my sis!"
Itinit wanted to turn around to put the annoying pet away somewhere, but he didn't have time. The dog girl's head appeared on the screen, which scared Unana and Yueret even more on the other side.
"Where's my sis?" Noru sniffed the screen. "Where are you hiding her?"
Yueret and Unana sat motionless on the bed and watched as the dog-girl's head said something incomprehensible.
"What is this?" Yueret asked.
"This is not Kimchan," Unana felt as if something had shrunk inside her. "She looks very similar. Maybe this is her big sister?"
"I'm not "what is this", Noru frowned. "I'm the master's favorite character. He loves me more than my little sister, although she also deserves to be loved like me!"
After these words, the dog girl howled in pain, and not by chance. Itinit grabbed her by the tail and pulled her away from the camera.
"Now it's clear why he treated Kimchan so cruelly," Unana felt sorry for the dog girls. "It's good that she's with me, and the most she can get is an electric shock. Although no, I don't shoot an electric arrow at her anymore, only if she eats my food! But, that's too much. I can't do that."
"Sorry, this is my pet," Itinit bowed his head. "She's too active."
"Let me go, master!" a cry came from the other side of the screen. "My little sister is there!"
What happened next was something no one expected. Noru threw herself at the creator's screen and covered it with her face, and then Kimchan crawled out from under the bed in an almost human form and did the same thing, but from the opposite side.
"Sis!"
"Sis!"
The tongues of the two dog girls "met" and were then struck by a vibration. The next moment they were lying on either side of the screen in the same pose, limbs up, tongues hanging out, eyes bulging.
"Si..."
"Si..."
At this point, Yueret stopped understanding anything. He just stared at the screen as if it were a scene from a game.
Unana was terrified. What she was so afraid of was happening right in front of her. Luckily, Itinit managed to pull Nora away from the screen, and Kimchan disappeared too.
"I'm not finished yet," Itinit continued. "You want to know where your parents are, right?"
"Yup..." Unana looked at her brother.
The archer hoped that the information he had received would make Yueret forget what had just happened, but instead he lay down on the bed and closed his eyes.
"What happened?" Unana leaned over her brother.
Yueret did not answer. He was in shock, from which he only emerged after several dozen moments.
"What is it?" Yueret opened his eyes and looked at his sister.
"A bear ran by," Unana answered the first thing that came to mind. "Oh…"
The archer realized she had said too much, but it was too late. Yueret rose to his knees, looked around, and noticed a brown dog's tail sticking out from under the bed.
"This bear?" Yueret looked at his sister again.
"It's a dog," Unana answered. "She lives with us. Don't you remember?"
"I remember, but this tail is too big for Kimchan. She's a puppy."
The conversation between the brother and sister was interrupted by a shout from the screen:
"Sis, let's play! I'll throw you a fireball and you'll catch it."
The voice belonged to a female dog, which looked remarkably like Kimchan. This time, Itinit did not block the pet's access to the screen.
A loud dog groan was heard under the bed. The tail began to move, but then stopped.
"Kimchan, you can come out," Itinit's voice ordered from the side of the screen.
A panting sound was added to the groan. The tail began to move again, and soon a dog girl crawled out from under the bed, an almost complete copy of the one on the screen.
"Why..." Unana let go of the toy squirrel.
"This is Kimchan, one of my characters," Itinit explained. "She's a dog girl."
"What?" Yueret looked at the dog girl who was holding a toy squirrel in her teeth. "This is Kimchan? But she's a puppy."
"I sent her to watch over you," Itinit continued. "She's cute, isn't she?"
"Me too," Noru groaned.
Itinit had to stroke Kimchan's "big sister" on the head to stop her moaning, after which he continued:
"I created these characters in a special program. Unfortunately, I can't tell you anything more about this. But I can tell you how to find your parents."
"What?" Yueret instantly forgot about the dog girl with a toy in her mouth, and even about her little sister.
"My bug brother, your dad, gave me the coordinates of one place," Itinit continued. "Since you turned to me, I must give you these coordinates."
"It looks like some kind of plan," Yueret noted.
"Yeah," Itinit answered. "He was in hiding, so he couldn't tell me or someone else."
"Who was he hiding from?" Unana asked.
"I don't know," Itinit answered. "But it has something to do with the signal. Maybe he had a dream and decided to do something."
"This is very strange," Unana looked at the snow-covered window on the back side. "Even though I barely remember my dad, it seems to me that parents don't behave like that."
"There are a lot of strange things here," Itinit smiled. "I have already stopped being surprised by this."
"It is not surprising if he has such strange creatures," Yueret thought and looked at the dog ears on the screen.
"Where is mom?" Unana asked.
"She's not my sister, so I don't know anything about her," Itinit answered. "But she most likely left with your dad. Or maybe she was just erased."
"Eh?" Unana tried to ask, but she could only make one sound.
"There is a creature that can extract data from the bodies of creatures," Itinit explained. "But we captured it, so you will not meet it."
"Maybe mom is alive, just hiding, like dad?" Unana finally asked.
"At least your dad left some messages," Itinit looked to the side. "And your mom has no trace at all, as if she never existed."
"But we somehow appeared," Yueret objected. "That means we have a mom and dad. He couldn't create us in the program."
"Yes, it's impossible," Itinit answered. "I am the best proof of this. The characters created in the program have no relatives, but you have me and your little sister."
"But what about me?" the dog girl's voice was heard on the other side of the screen.
"Yup, how is that possible?" Unana asked. "Kimchan has a big sister, just like I have Yueret."
"Uh..." Itinit bowed his head. "There are only two of them, but there are already three of us."
"There are three of us too," Kimchan suddenly joined the conversation. "There is another sis."
"What?" Unana looked at Kimchan, and then turned her gaze to the screen, where Noru's face appeared.
"Let's not talk about this," Itinit suggested. "I don't have much time. I told you everything I knew. Maybe you still have questions?"
"Yes," Yueret answered. "How will I remember what you just said?"
"You have Kimchan," Itinit looked at the screen. "Just pull her tail and she'll tell you anything. But seriously, just find the file on the memory card that has everything you need written in it. There will also be coordinates of the place you need to go to find out the location of your dad."
"I have a question..." Unana blushed and turned away. "What will happen to Kimchan? You're not going to beat her, are you?"
"Of course I won't," Itinit laughed. "She will stay with you and take you to the place marked on the map. I don't know where it is, but I think it will be faster on a fire dog than on a train."
Kimchan tilted her head to the side, and then groaned softly.
"Sorry, Kimchan, your task is not finished yet," Itinit answered. "Just be patient a little longer, and you will meet your sister."
Kimchan stuck out her tongue and rushed to the screen. Noru did the same. The vibration hit the dog girls again, but it didn't matter to them.
"Sis..."
"Sis..."
Noru and Kimchan fell on their backs in opposite directions, but froze in the same position, with their tongues hanging out and their paws up.
"And the last thing," Itinit looked at Yueret. "Only I can pull Kimchan by the tail. You can only pull her by the hair."
"Okay," Unana looked at her pet and smiled. "I will take care of her. But pulling her by the hair probably hurts."
"She's already used to me pulling her hair," Itinit smiled. "But she's not used to being pulled by the tail yet."
Kimchan looked at Unana in fear and groaned. On the screen, Itinit's head was replaced by the burning head of the big sister dog girl.
"Hey, you're brown!" Noru said to Unana.
"What?" Unana asked.
"Who's the brown?" Yueret looked at the dog girls' hair, then at his sister's hair, and saw that for some reason they were the same color.
"If you do anything to my sis..." Noru bared her teeth.
Fortunately, the threats never reached Unana. The screen went black, and then a message appeared on it, consisting of blue symbols.
"The user has left you," Yueret read the inscription. "He turned it off in time."
"Are you afraid of animal girls?" Unana asked.
"No, I just don't know how such a thing can exist."
Yueret looked at Kimchan, who was sitting on the floor next to the bed and looking at him with fear.
"I think I saw you somewhere."
"No... No... No, I didn't see it," Kimchan waved her hand.
"This is our dog," Unana blushed. "Of course you saw her."
"No, I saw her like that," Yueret continued. "Of course, it could have been a coincidence and I met a human girl in disguise, but this Kimchan looks too much like her."
"I don't… I don't look like that," Kimchan folded her hands together at chest level, then stuck out her tongue and closed one eye.
"She spoke in the same voice as you," Yueret added. "I think you're deceiving me."
"Kimchan is an ordinary dog," Unana looked at the window. "You said so yourself."
"But now I see a completely different dog," Yueret looked at the dog girl. "Who is she really?"
"Aw..." Kimchan barked, as if she had forgotten how to speak humanly.
"You see, this is an ordinary dog," Unana sat down on the floor next to Kimchan, and then extended her palm.
Kimchan placed one of her "paws" on her owner's palm, as if she were imitating an ordinary dog.
"You see," Unana said. "She even offers her paw. This is an ordinary dog. You play games too much, that's why you think so."
"But I heard from Itinit..." Yueret objected.
"What?" Unana couldn't answer.
"I can turn on the recording of our conversation."
"Don't," Unana let go of her pet's hand, and then turned back to the window. "Actually, I deceived you a little."
Of course, in reality, Unana had been deceiving her brother for a long time, but she couldn't really confess.
"I see it," Yueret said.
"But..." Unana turned to face her brother. "Animal girls don't exist."
"Now they exist. That explains why Kimchan didn't grow. She can have several forms, right?"
Kimchan barked affirmatively.
"Kimchan, you can already speak like a human being," Unana said.
"I…" Kimchan tried to speak, but because of her stutter she couldn't finish the sentence.
"Show me," Unana suggested.
A white glow engulfed Kimchan. A few moments later, a large dog that looked like a bear was sitting in her place.
"Is this the transport we'll fly to that very place on?" Yueret asked.
"Aw..." Kimchan answered.
"In dog form, she cannot speak humanly," Unana explained. "But she can burn and fly like a comet. It's scary, but the fire isn't hot at all."
"You speak as if you flew on it," Yueret looked at his sister.
"No!" Unana waved her hands. "Kimchan was just telling me."
Yueret looked at Kimchan, who was sitting on the floor in the form of a large dog, tilting her head to the right and then to the left.
"I think it was no coincidence that I saw a creature that looked like a bear," Yueret finally realized.
***
The head of a doll with long pink hair, surrounded by a purple energy barrier resembling a bubble, was "hanging" in the air in the middle of a room with smooth stone walls. Her gaze was directed at the chain that hung from a small hole in the wall and ended in the corner where the body laid.
From the floor in the opposite corner of the room one of the slabs rose up. But the doll didn't seem to notice it.
"Yuehei, I think that's enough for today," a voice came from under the floor. "You're doing too much."
The doll still ignored the voice, as if she hadn't heard it.
"I don't think this character will escape," the voice continued. "You can let her go. The room is completely locked. She won't be able to get out without the virtual lock and code."
The doll did not react. The creature that the voice belonged approached the body. A large wrench appeared in its hand and immediately moved towards the collar to which the chain was attached…
… The body, previously covered with chains, was now found to be both naked and headless. The torso was lying on its stomach, but the legs were twisted and bent at the knees. The hands were lying near the neck, palms up, as if searching for the missing head.
"You could talk before," the creature said. "And you could answer. But now you can either remain silent or answer with text. Do you regret it?"
A virtual screen with a white text field appeared above the body, on which black symbols began to appear:
"I have never regretted it. That day I told you something that I can no longer repeat, but if I could, I would repeat it again."
...Kuttanai stood in front of his younger sister's bed. Yuehei looked at the ceiling and couldn't even lift her head, but for some reason she was smiling.
"I want my dream to come true," Yuehei said. "I want to fly, I want to walk, I want to know what the world is really like, not just what it's shown on the internet. That's why words aren't important to me. If I lie there and just talk, I won't be of any use. But if I keep quiet, but help someone else…"
… The sentence continued as an inscription:
"…so it wasn't in vain."