"What is this?" Tuot asked.
"Some kind of game," Itinit answered.
The silhouette on the screen transformed into a girl in a white and blue hooded jacket with small, rounded ears sticking out.
"Oh..." Itinit took a step back. "Does this remind you of anything?"
Nobody answered.
"Tuot, can you hear me?"
Tuot, of course, heard his friend, but he couldn't answer. All his limbs, including his head, were shaking, preventing him from answering the question.
Itinit could do nothing but continue to examine the character. The creator of the dog girls immediately noticed the gloves with cutouts for fingers with long black claws. This unique weapon was meant to intimidate the enemy, but it looked comical in combination with the small bear heads on the top of the gloves.
The image was completed by thick bare legs, spread wide apart, and black eyes above plump pale cheeks.
"This is the bear girl who attacked us when we arrived at the station," Itinit recalled. "Only that bear girl was brown, and this one is white-blue."
"Did you see her?"
Itinit turned his gaze to Tuot. The dinosaur looked at his friend as if his friend had visited another world.
"She almost killed me and your owner," Itinit explained. "There's nothing good about that."
"Animal girls are good."
For several dozen moments, Tuot stared at the creature on the screen and couldn't believe how something similar to his favorite characters could try to kill random people.
"She just wanted to eat," Itinit explained. "It's spring. Brown bears are coming out of hibernation and trying to find food. At this time, they'll eat anything remotely edible."
"Even a dinosaur…"
"Yeah… Dinosaurs are eaten by everyone who eats meat."
Tuot sat down on the floor, but continued to look at the bear girl, even though he no longer thought about her.
"Don't worry, no one will hunt you," Itinit said. "They haven't eaten you yet, have they?"
"No. They haven't even bitten off your leg."
"So they don't want to eat you. But a brown bear might want to eat a bird after it comes out of hibernation."
"But there's a blue and white bear. It doesn't hibernate."
"Yeah, but they're somehow connected. This character has a different color of hair, eyes, and clothes, but everything else is the same. It's the same model, just painted different colors."
"Is this like in games?"
"Yeah, that's what they do when they lack the resources to create a new character. But here, I don't think that's the case. These two creatures are somehow connected."
"Why?"
Itinit sat down in one of the wooden chairs and continued:
"I once created a dog girl. She was lonely. She really wanted a little sister and asked me to create her one. But I told her it was impossible."
"Couldn't you have created another dog girl just like her?"
"No. The new dog girl would certainly be similar to the first, but she wouldn't be her sister. That's impossible. The creatures created in the Mausoleum of Nature don't have brothers or sisters, because they're created by artificial intelligence that merges with the creator's energy."
"I didn't quite understand, but I understood."
"I refused to create another dog girl. Then Noruluya (that's her name) said she'd create a sister herself. And she did."
"In your head…"
"Yeah, like Etinnei. Only Noruluya didn't have a penguin, but a near-perfect copy of her. She was very similar to Noruluya, but her personality was almost completely opposite."
"That reminds me of something."
"Yeah... Her fake sister started taking over her body, and I had to take Noruluya to the Island of Energy Mushrooms. Sanachan pulled the creature out of her brain, and then..."
"There became two of them?"
"Yeah… That's how Noru and Kimchan came to be. I haven't seen Noruluya since, but Sanachan said that when Noru and Kimchan turn into comets and collide, Noruluya will appear again. But I never did."
"Why? Don't you want to meet your dog girl?"
"No. I want Noruluya to come back for real, but I don't want Noru and Kimchan to disappear."
There was silence. Only the faint vibration of the screen on the wall and a suspicious panting sound from the hall broke it.
Itinit turned toward the doorway and saw two pairs of dog ears peeking out from behind the wall.
"I think..."
The creator of the dog girls didn't have time to finish his thought before his pets already peeked out from behind the wall and looked at him anxiously.
"Creator!"
"Master!"
The dog girls stopped near the screen.
"Why didn't you tell me we had another sis?"
"I told you to wait in the hall and guard the barrel."
"We brought a barrel," Noru said. "I thought the meat would spoil, so I decided to eat it with you and my sis."
"Yup, the meat has already started to come to life," Kimchan said. "It's... moving."
"The sheep girl has already begun to recover," Itinit guessed. "As I thought, she won't die if you simply fry her."
"Master, show me my sis, the one you're hiding," Noru twitched her dog ears. "But first, let's eat."
"I don't have your sis," Itinit admitted honestly.
"But you told the dinosaur," Noru frowned.
"I was joking," Itinit lied. "You only have one sis, your little sis."
"Ahh... Then let's eat a sheep!"
"I think one little sheep won't be enough for the two of you."
Noru looked down guiltily and now looked more like her "little sister" than herself.
"Just go back where I left you," Itinit patted the older dog girl on the top of her head. "And don't come back here again. I'm busy with something very important."
"Okay," Noru's eyes welled with tears, which evaporated almost immediately against her hot skin.
The dog girls left the room as quickly as they had entered. Itinit turned to the wall with the screen and continued to examine the bear girl depicted on it.
"I wouldn't want to fight her," Itinit's gaze fell on the bracelets with little bear heads on the gloves. "For some reason, I'm sure those things will freeze me faster than I can summon the barrier."
Tuot recalled the fight with the doll that summoned flowers from the ground. The dinosaur became so scared that for the first time in his life he stopped looking at the animal girl.
"There's definitely something else here," Itinit walked up to the wall next to the screen and ran his hand down.
As expected, a blue-framed screen appeared on the wall and connected to the first one. But, unlike its neighbor, this one had buttons with symbols on them.
"I think I know what this is," Itinit said. "This is..."
Itinit took a step to the left and ran his hand along the wall. A third screen appeared next to the second screen an image of a wooden station, a track, and a train.
"…a studio," Itinit finished. "Games were created here."
"What?"
Tuot looked at the screen and couldn't believe what he saw. The wooden station, without windows or doors, looked suspiciously like the one in the game. Even the blue-green mountains in the background matched the same background in the game's location.
"This shouldn't be here," Tuot said, opening his screen and logging into the game.
"This is Station T, a location from the game you're playing," Itinit explained.
"It's called Ears and Tails. I just found out."
"That's obvious. A game like that can only be called that."
Tuot thought about it. Itinit looked at the first screen and realized something.
"So, this bear girl is a character from that game?"
Itinit summoned another window, this one with a different image, a wooden building on a black background.
"This is a model of that train station," the dog girl creator guessed. "So they definitely developed a game here. There should be an interface screen somewhere nearby, where the buttons are."
Itinit opened two more screens, but saw only advertising banners featuring fox girls and horned lizard girls. He quietly found himself at the wall at the end of the room.
"If there are buttons anywhere, they must be somewhere very important. But I know they're definitely in this room. These screens are interconnected and can't exist without the screen that controls them."
Itinit waved his hand in front of the wall at the end of the room, but instead of the usual screen, only its barely visible flickering frame appeared.
"It's almost out of power," Itinit said. "I can't get in there."
"Are you looking for something?" Tuot asked.
"Did I not tell you, or did you simply not remember? But it's the same thing."
Itinit sat down in the nearest chair and continued:
"When I played the game you're playing, I noticed that some locations were similar to locations in our world."
"I noticed too, but I thought it was just a game," Tuot shook his head.
"I thought so too at first, until I saw characters with ears and tails. They looked like the ones from Mausoleum of Nature. I already knew they existed. It seemed suspicious to me."
"But characters like that exist in a lot of games."
"They were too realistic in that game. There were also robots and dolls, but you couldn't play as them. That was also suspicious. There were too many similarities with our world. That means the game's creators knew too much about this world, too much."
"They could have simply created what they saw."
"Yeah... They saw the animal girls, so they created them in the game, and they turned out so realistic that they appealed to... creatures like you."
"What does that mean?"
"You don't understand? But that's normal for you. If the developers saw animal girls in the real world, they could have created such creatures in the game. So they're somehow connected to the Mausoleum of Nature."
"Ahh... now I get it. You want to know who created the Mausoleum of Nature."
"Yeah… Tuot, you figured it out too quickly."
"I'm not stupid anymore. I've learned a lot about the world. And it's all because of the animal girls. They help me learn things I couldn't."
"Your hobby is useful. I hope Noru isn't eavesdropping right now."
Itinit glanced at the doorway, then rose from his chair and walked toward the room's exit.
"What's there?" Tuot looked fearfully at his friend, who stood in the threshold, "headless."
"Nothing," Itinit returned to the room. "The little animals are gone. By the way, I promised them I'd return quickly. I also promised the same to your little ice animal. She is waiting up there."
"Etinnei... She's lost us."
"We'll have to leave here. Although I've already learned everything I could. All that's left is to take pictures of these screens."
Itinit summoned the camera and placed his finger on the large black button.
***
The shield with Unana and Yueret landed on the ground in front of the porch with wooden columns.
"Just a little bit more and we'll be home," the older "bear cub" approached the door.
"Home…"
Yueret looked at his sister and understood what she was talking about.
"No, the doll didn't make me. I think this is the only place we can rest. If we don't rest, we won't be able to look for dad."
"Yup," Unana turned away. "When I saw this house, I immediately thought of the doll."
"Don't be afraid of dolls. They break easily."
The door was unlocked. Yueret pushed it open and saw a lizard girl in the middle of the room, sitting on two large boxes.
"Unana, you were right. It's best not to come here."
Yueret turned to his sister and was about to leave, but a nasty voice stopped him:
"Hey, bear cub Yueret, come here!"
"That lizard never called me that. She just called me bear cub. Something's wrong."
Yueret turned toward the house. Timnichan sat on boxes with images of brown and white-blue bears' heads.
"She's brought something again," Yueret recalled the foolish lizard that had brought deer antlers to the abandoned train station.
"Bear cubs, come here!" Timnichan said with a serious expression. "I brought you gifts."
"So, you went to get gifts?" Yueret stepped forward and found herself at the door.
"Yup," Timnichan nodded. "But to get them, the cubs need to return to the den."
Yueret turned to his sister. Unana looked at her brother with a displeased expression.
"What's going on there?"
"Look."
Unana peeked out from behind her brother, and then hid back.
"But the boxes have bear heads on them. Our bear heads. One for you, one for me…"
"That's to confuse us."
"Unana, that's too much."
"You think so?"
"Yeah, let's check it out."
Unana began to doubt, and soon curiosity overcame fear. The girl took her brother's hand, and together, like two bear cubs, they entered the "den."
"Congratulations, bear cubs Yueret and Unana," Timnichan climbed down from the boxes. "You've completed the task, and you can receive your gifts."
"You forgot to say so said my creator," Yueret added.
"No, I haven't forgotten," Timnichan closed her eyes and finally smiled.
"She's hiding something," Unana thought.
"Then say," Yueret suggested.
Timnichan turned her head toward the wall of logs. Unana and Yueret also looked there and waited to see what would happen.
"You're all grown up now, bear cubs," the lizard girl said. "My creator will say you that for me."
The logs cracked and began to move apart in opposite directions. Unana and Yueret froze in anticipation. It seemed to the brother and sister that they would finally see what they had been searching for so long…
... But reality turned out to be completely different from expectations. A yellow-haired doll's head and hands, resting on the floor, emerged from the opening.
A body appeared behind the head, carrying a man wearing a black, horned helmet with a helmet shield and ears. His entire attire consisted of a black robe with metal plates on the chest and stomach, purple pants, and large black boots with blue, glowing patterns.
"Is that true, our dad?" Unana looked at her brother pitifully.
"I hope…" Yueret said. "I'm tired of looking for him."
Unana had to look at the rider on the doll and get used to the idea that her first impression had slightly exceeded her expectations.
"Bear cubs, here is your dad," Timnichan pointed at the rider. "He is the great lord, the tamer of battle dolls, the wearer of the horned helmet, the creator of me and the bear cubs."
"Thank you, Timnichan, for such respectful words," the man in the helmet said. "Now your role is over. You may leave."
Timnichan stuck out her tongue, pointed it at the room her creator had emerged from, and then rode off along the "rail."
"Sorry, we played a little joke on you," the man in the helmet said.
"Is this lizard really that stupid?" Unana asked.
"Yes, bear cub, I'm not stupid," there's a nasty voice coming from the next room.
"Why did you do it?" Yueret asked.
"I had to deceive someone."
"Someone..." Unana frowned.
"Your mom…"
"What?" Unana staggered, but leaned on her older brother just in time.
"Have you met a bear girl?"
"Yup," the brother and sister answered simultaneously.
"That's your mom."
"No, it's the bear girl," Unana staggered again. "She's not our mom…"
Unana fell to her knees. Yueret could no longer hold his sister back, as he himself could barely stand from shock.
"Now I can tell you what I must," the rider said, grabbing his helmet.
Unana turned away. She was afraid to see a lifeless doll face or the emptiness where the head was often found in games.
"Don't be afraid, Unana," the man said, removing his helmet. "I haven't become a doll."
Unana turned around sharply and saw a familiar face, with the same brown hair as hers, only very disheveled.
"Dad…" Unana felt something warm inside. "Do you know my name?"
"Yeah, I named you that myself. At first, I wanted to name a character in a game I was making, but I forgot about it. Then, when you were born, I remembered you looked like her, so I named you that."
"Was it a bearry?" Unana asked.
"Yeah, it was a brown bear girl. She became your mom."