The electric current hit the lizard, but it didn't seem to notice.
"What?" Itinit nearly fell to his knees.
The lightning moved across the animal's body for a few moments, then disappeared. And then Itinit realized what was going on.
"These animals have a high resistance to electricity. It rains here often. There are probably thunderstorms too often. These lizards live in rivers, but come ashore. They are struck by lightning more often than other creatures."
Itinit threw a ball with a snowflake inside at the lizard. This time the animal noticed the approach of danger while still in flight. Despite its large size, the lizard almost instantly stood on all fours and jumped into the water…
The ball hit the window of the "metal bird" and burst. The front part of the flying machine, the "beak" and the window above it, covered with a thin layer of ice.
"As I thought," Itinit approached the "metal bird" and thought. "The lizard didn't react to the lightning because it was used to being electrocuted, but the ice was something new for it."
Due to the high temperature, the ice began to melt immediately after it appeared, and by the time Itinit approached the flying machine, it was already in a semi-liquid state.
"I'll have to set a trap; otherwise I won't catch this lizard."
An empty energy ball appeared in Itinit's hand, which then moved to the bottom of the flying machine.
"If these creatures are no smarter than Tuot, they should approach the 'metal bird' and then the trap will turn into a barrier that won't let them out for a while. Hopefully, I can find Halankuo and return."
Itinit and Tuot walked along the riverbank to avoid the swamp they hadn't even seen. The forests of tree ferns were getting closer and closer to the water and becoming denser. The lianas and bushes were once again forming almost impenetrable thickets, which required not only a blade but also an energy aura to overcome.
"I recognize these forests," Itinit stopped near one of the ferns. "It looks like we're going where we need to go."
"Only the place we need to get to has become even further away," Tuot noted. "Are you sure we'll get there before the end of the day?"
Itinit looked at the sky. It was so covered with gray-purple clouds that it was unclear where the sun was in it.
"I realized something," Itinit opened the interface.
"What?" Tuot asked. "That lizard is actually a robot?"
"That would be too much. Look."
Itinit pointed to an empty blue cell in the upper corner of the screen.
"There's no time here," Tuot shuddered several times.
"Yeah," Itinit looked at his friend. "All this time, when we arrived here, we didn't know what time it was."
"I didn't even notice it."
"But let's hope that night doesn't suddenly fall. That doesn't happen, does it?"
Tuot didn't have time to answer. Instead of the dinosaur, thunder answered, which swept across the sky with such a roar that Itinit could not find his feathered friend even in the forest.
"If something comes out of there, I'll use the harpoon. Of course, it's unlikely to be that snake. Even for it, this hole is too big. It looks like it was made for people. So it's..." Tuot thought of the worst thing he'd ever encountered.
"No. It's unlikely that this is the place where the man with the carrot nose or without it lives. There's an ordinary doll there, you just need to cut off its head, and then you can run away."
The frightened dinosaur's thoughts were interrupted by the sound of an incoming message. Tuot looked at the screen and saw a red dot on the messenger icon.
"This is a message from Itinit," Tuot was happy. "He noticed that I was gone and wrote."
The dinosaur's claw landed on an icon with several dots. "Inside" was a short message from a friend.
"Itinit asks where I am," Tuot read. "But where am I? What should I say?"
"Write that you are already there," a voice from behind prompted.
From the sudden strange voice, Tuot screamed, and because of the aura, he jumped almost to the tops of the ferns, after which he landed on the arch and looked down.
A girl's head with long black hair was sticking out of the hole. It was so disheveled and tousled that even Tuot easily recognized her as his owner and childhood friend.
"You're sitting there like a bird," Halankuo said. "Wait, don't get down from there."
"It's definitely Halankuo," Tuot now had no doubt who was in front of him. "But she's kind of strange. Has she really become a doll?"
A girl's hand appeared from the hole, summoned a screen with a camera in one motion and took several pictures.
"Now jump down and come to me," Halankuo said. "There's no one here except me, so no one will attack you."
Tuot jumped to the ground in front of the hole and saw two juicy pieces of meat in front of him.
"Don't look like that, you're not in a refrigerator," Halankuo's voice came from ahead.
The pieces of meat began to move away and soon took the shape of the girl's thighs. Halankuo was slowly crawling on all fours across the cool rocky floor, partly covered with moss. The girl was wearing only a long black T-shirt that covered her buttocks but left her legs completely exposed.
Tuot didn't notice how he found himself in a room with walls thickly covered with vines. There were no windows here. Instead, there were several holes in the ceiling from which diffused light came.
"Why are you crawling?" Tuot asked. "You became an animal girl, but haven't received ears and a tail yet?"
"Of course not..." Halankuo answered. "I have something to tell you."
Halankuo crawled to the wall and then leaned her back against it. Her legs were closer to each other and now looked especially appetizing for a dinosaur. But this did not bother the girl at all. Halankuo looked so exhausted that she resembled a doll.
"It all started with Kyotyoryon..."
Halankuo told the pet about what had happened to her and her character while he was away. Unfortunately, the girl did not have enough strength to finish the story, so she reached the moment when Kyotyoryon left her, after which she fell silent.
"What happened next?" Tuot asked. "How did you end up here?"
Halankuo looked at her friend with tired eyes and no longer understood what he was saying.
"Have you become a doll?" Tuot tilted his head to get a better look at the face of his owner and childhood friend.
Halankuo did not answer. Her eyes slowly closed, after which the girl sank to the floor.
The dinosaur's gaze moved from his face to Halankuo's hips. Tuot remembered the incident in the apartment in Yenekit, when he found his owner sleeping and thought she was dead. Then the dinosaur wanted to eat the one with whom he spent his childhood, but a sudden memory prevented him did it.
But this time, Tuot wasn't thinking about food. The dinosaur was distracted by the sound of water. It seemed like there was a waterfall nearby, but it was hidden by the thick vegetation and walls.
Tuot went into another room, where he saw a hole in the ceiling, partially covered with vegetation. The walls, like in the previous room, were covered with lianas. Near one of them lay a pile of fern leaves.
The dinosaur approached this makeshift bed and noticed that the noise of the water increased, and soon its source was discovered.
The energy harpoon flew towards the wall opposite the entrance and cut off the lianas that almost completely covered it. A large hole in the wall opened in front of the dinosaur, leading straight into the forest.
Tuot approached the opening to make sure he wasn't imagining things. The noise of the water had increased so much that it drowned out even the sounds of footsteps and the vibration of the aura.
"I can't go any further. If I leave here, I'll get lost and won't be able to meet Halankuo again. But I want to tell her a lot of things too. I finally met the animal girl and even became friends with her, and then I met another one, but I didn't become friends with her because I'm a dinosaur. Maybe Halankuo can tell me how to make friends with the dog girl? She has such big brown ears. They also move. What else do you need to be happy?"
Tuot returned to the previous room. Halankuo was still lying on the floor. One of her legs was bent at the knee, and the other was straight. To avoid thinking about food, the dinosaur imagined that the girl's disheveled hair had small animal ears hidden among it.
Soon, Tuot stopped imagining it. He actually believed that the ears were there and decided to find them.
It was not an easy task. The long hair was so tangled that it was impossible to find anything among it.
But Tuot did not give up. He deactivated the aura, then ran his hand through his hair...
One of the fingers passed through the first obstacle of tangled strands, but got stuck on the second. Another finger went deeper, but then got stuck too. The third finger didn't even have time to enter the "barrier" and got tangled in the first strand it came across.
"Halankuo didn't comb her hair on purpose, so that no one could find her ears. But I'll do it. I have another hand."
The dinosaur freed his other hand from the sword to make another attempt, but heard a groan nearby…
Halankuo rolled over onto her other side. Tuot felt his arm twist in the other direction, and then he felt a pain he had never felt before…
The dinosaur woke up and saw a ceiling covered with vines with large leaves in front of him. Halankuo was sitting next to him, staring at one point. This made her look even more like the doll Tuot had fought in the dungeon.
"I'm not finished, sorry," Halankuo said quietly. "I don't have the strength now, and I can't talk for long."
Tuot rose to his feet and noticed a tuft of black hair in his hand.
"No. I don't have those ears. I didn't become an animal girl. I need to wash my hair and comb it. I tried to get to the waterfall, but I can't. Can you carry me there?"
Tuot walked up to his friend, looked at her head, but didn't notice any baldness.
"There are still a lot of them," the dinosaur noted. "How did you have the strength to pull them out?"
"I asked my mother, and she did it," Halankuo answered.
"Where is she?" Tuot looked around, but did not see anyone.
"Aaah... I haven't told you about this yet."
Halankuo told her friend about how her mother's data had appeared in her brain during the battle with Kyotyoryon at the abandoned station.
"Now she's like Etinnei," Tuot thought. "I hope Halankuo doesn't go crazy."
"Take me to the waterfall and wash my hair," Halankuo was still looking at the wall. "Just don't take off my head. And don't look for the ears, you won't find them anyway."
"If Halankuo doesn't have animal ears, that are bad," Tuot thought. "I was hoping I'd made friends with another animal girl."
"Sit on the floor," Halankuo said. "I can't jump on you."
"What?"
Tuot clearly didn't expect to have to carry his owner and childhood friend on his back, but he had no choice.
Tuot sat down on the floor, after which something heavy fell on his back.
"Tuot, you are my birdie," Halankuo leaned against her pet. "Finally you've grown up and I can ride you."
"I feel like you won't be riding for long."
"Don't be afraid. The waterfall is not far. Even I crawled there."
"I'll crawl there too."
Halankuo smiled. Now her face at least somewhat resembled a human face, not a doll's, but her feathered friend did not see it.
"Where to go," Tuot asked. "There doesn't seem to be a door."
"Go ahead. There's a slot for a wrench behind the leaves."
Tuot walked up to the wall, which was occupied by a liana with a large oval leaf.
"Now move it aside," Halankuo said.
Tuot did what his owner and childhood friend said. Under the sheet was a slot carved into the wall for a wrench.
"Now it's my turn," Halankuo said. "Close your eyes and don't peek."
Tuot obeyed again. There was almost complete darkness, in which a sound characteristic of the divergence of stone slabs was heard.
"Now open them."
Tuot opened his eyes and saw a small lake surrounded by forest and a narrow waterfall that flowed into it.
"Do you see?" Halankuo asked.
"Yup," Tuot pointed to the waterfall. "I'm going there."
The dinosaur took a step forward, and then noticed that he was standing on the edge of a cliff, and there was no road to the waterfall.
"Uh-uh?" Tuot shouted. "How do I get there?"
"I forgot to activate the energy bridge," Halankuo sighed. "Go back to the slot in the wall."
Tuot turned to return to the building hidden among the vegetation, but he lost his footing with the heavy load on his back…
The dinosaur felt water fill his mouth, and then some force pushed him up.
"I forgot that you're too clumsy," Halankuo's voice came from above. "It's been more than a month after all."
Tuot looked up and noticed his owner and childhood friend in a purple aura, slowly descending onto the rocky shore of the lake. Then the dinosaur's gaze moved higher, to the rocky cliff on which stood a gray stone building covered in dark green vegetation.
"I fell into the lake," Tuot thought. "It's good that it's just water. It could have been acid if this place was somewhere out there, beyond the mountains."
Tuot still couldn't forget Itinit's words about the interior of the Southern Continent. The dinosaur imagined lakes with boiling lava and acid of different colors, on the banks of which lay the skeletons of lizards that had not yet dissolved.
"Tuot, come here..."
The dinosaur looked at the shore and saw Halankuo there, who was no longer surrounded by an aura. The girl was sitting on her knees. Her head was tilted down, causing her hair to cover her face.
"Tuot..."
The dinosaur came ashore. Halankuo sat in the same position and did not move.
"Tuot, take off my clothes," the girl continued. "The clothes might get wet."
Halankuo's voice was so weak that it seemed she would continue the next sentence in her mind.
The dinosaur activated the aura, after which the harpoon penetrated under the bottom edge of the T-shirt...
Halankuo groaned loudly. The vibration passed through her body and made her throw her head back. The harpoon rose up, and soon the T-shirt was already flying through the air.