Toloruchan landed on the snow without even sinking into it. Her body became so light that it left no visible traces. Only the vibration from her aura slightly lifted the outermost layer of snowflakes.
But Nyonyokyo, standing motionless on the seashore, noticed her sister and turned her head toward her.
"Sis, why did you become a butterfly?" Nyonyokyo tilted her head to one side. "Butterflies don't live long."
The screen with the answer appeared in front of Nyonyokyo.
"I see. If you find the server, you'll no longer be a doll. But how will you find the server? It doesn't show up. And that person doesn't show up either."
The text on the screen changed. Now it was a long list with a strange diagram that only the dolls could read.
"If I become a butterfly, will that summon him?" Nyonyokyo looked first right, then left.
"Yes," a voice came from behind the electric doll.
"Sis, you can't speak."
The text on the screen was replaced by a mirror, in which Nyonyokyo saw, in addition to herself, the head of a man in a white-blue helmet.
"This..." the electric doll turned its head back. "Is this the man?"
"Yes," the head in the white-blue helmet answered.
Nyonyokyo instantly moved a few steps to the side to avoid a possible blow, but then stopped.
"Sis, something's holding me back."
Nyonyokyo lowered her head and saw a blue energy rope that was wrapping around her torso and gradually squeezing it.
"It's a yellow doll," Nyonyokyo's gaze moved along the rope and quickly discovered it sticking out from under the snow. "I don't need to talk to you. I'll talk to your creator."
"To the dolls, I'm the great lord." Sogotoh reminded her.
"You're not her creator. To me, you're simply that human."
"Fine, call me whatever you want."
"I want to ask you something."
"Where's the hidden server?"
"Yes. Where's the hidden server?"
"I don't know."
"Okay."
Nyonyokyo turned her head to the screen to read what her sister had written, but she couldn't. Instead of a screen, a purple energy seed appeared in the air, slowly descending onto the snow.
"Now Nyonyokyo will say, 'Sis, do you want to summon that very flower?'" Sogotoh thought.
The electric doll saw the energy seed enter the snow, and then said the very same phrase:
"Sis, do you want to summon that very flower?"
"It still works," Sogotoh thought. "The dolls operate according to certain scenarios. Now this seed will fall into the snow, then into the ground, and summon an energy flower. I just don't remember what color it is."
Sogotoh suddenly realized he couldn't remember a key moment in the battle scenario. The color of the energy flower determined its ability, meaning different abilities had to be used against different flowers.
"Okay, it's just a battle with dolls," Sogotoh looked at the snow and thought. "I've gotten too carried away with creating games and I've already forgotten what a real fight with fake creatures is like."
The seed disappeared into a layer of snow, turning it white-blue. This color reminded Sogotoh of a creature he had been trying so hard to avoid.
"You can't think about her, otherwise she'll come here. After she wakes up, she can even sense thoughts."
Fortunately, Sogotoh soon stopped thinking about the bear girl. The white-blue snow began to stir suspiciously...
... The air filled with countless snowflakes, which scattered into individual flakes...
"Now Nyonyokyo will say..." Sogotoh thought. "It's okay."
But Nyonyokyo said nothing. When the snowfall almost stopped, the doll looked ahead, not at what had burst from beneath the snow.
"What's wrong?" Sogotoh looked at the closed energy flower that suddenly grew out from under the snow, and didn't even understand what color it was. "Why didn't she say?"
Soon Sogotoh realized that the electric doll was looking not just forward, but directly at him, after which he felt a strange movement of cool air behind him...
"Sis, what is this?" Nyonyokyo said.
"Something's wrong here," Sogotoh slowly turned around. "It can't be..."
A white-blue hand with claws and glowing white-blue pads, radiating cold, almost completely covered the space in front of Sogotoh.
"Hotuka..."
Behind the hand, which turned out to be a glove, stood that same northern creature…
Black eyes stood out against a pale face with black eyelashes and eyebrows. White-yellow hair hung from under a white-blue hood, resembling icicles. A noticeable cloud of steam billowed from a small, almost invisible nose, and a striped mouth slowly parted...
"Hello," the creature smiled.
The "paw" almost reached Sogotoh's face, and he felt a sharp rush of cold. The tip of his nose even began to freeze, but then something strange happened: the paw, along with the bear girl, retreated a few steps.
"Great lord, is that her?" A strand of yellow hair appeared before Sogotoh's face.
"Aragas," the "great lord" immediately recognized his maid. "Why did you come out?"
Sogotoh looked down and noticed the energy rope that encircled his torso and ended in the maid's hand.
"I've already dedicated my head to you," Aragas answered. "I'll protect you as long as I have a head. When I don't, I'll stop."
"With such an opponent, you'll stop quickly."
Hotuka looked at the doll that seemed to appear out of nowhere, then looked at her hand, surrounded by icy vapors, and only then stopped her gaze on the man in the helmet.
"I thought we'd be together," the bear girl exhaled a cloud of white steam. "Why is that non-living creature here… and two other non-living creatures."
"I am the great lord's maid," Aragas answered in Sogotoh's stead. "I am a doll, not a non-living creature."
"You should be under the ice," Hotuka smiled maliciously. "You took my bearry from me, forced him to separate me from my sis, and then stole my memory."
"No, that's not true," Sogotoh said. "If you give me a little time, I'll explain what really happened."
Icy vapors from her hand spread to Hotuka's head, causing her eyes to glow white-blue.
"Those are her words, not yours," the bear girl said. "But that doesn't matter now. I'll bring you home. There you'll sleep peacefully on your icy bed. No one can take you away from me again."
While Hotuka was talking to Aragas and Sogotoh, Nyonyokyo looked at Toloruchan.
"Sis, we're at the wrong time. Let's go."
The screen in front of Nyonyokyo disappeared. Toloruchan pointed her hand, holding an eye, at one of the gray flower's petals, causing it to open, and then entered it.
… The flower disappeared under the snow, along with the dolls. Only Hotuka and her old acquaintances remained on the seashore.
***
Unana approached a block of ice the size of a rock, inside which a huge skull with horns was visible.
"It's a thing that needs to be melted," Hotuka approached the frozen server. "With these horns, it can remove the barrier. But the undead creatures froze it so I couldn't do anything."
"You said you froze this thing yourself," Yueret emerged from the fog.
"Yeah, but the non-living creatures forced me to do it," Hotuka made such a vicious face, as if she wanted to tear apart the block of ice in front of her.
Unana opened the skills tab and quickly found a button with an image of several comets. The icon looked quite powerful, though the description was almost entirely unclear.
"Yueret, can you read this?" Unana pointed her clawed finger at the unclear symbols.
"Yeah, but not all," Yueret peered out from behind his sister's head. "Some of the symbols are too ancient. They're not written anywhere else. Some I've never seen before."
"You went to school."
"That was in our world. There may be other symbols here."
"Tell me what is written here."
"These are comets that appear from the pads of your hand. First they fly upward, then they grow larger and fall back down."
Unana turned her palm towards herself and saw several black-gray pads on the underside of the glove.
"I also have such things," Hotuka extended her hand with black and purple pads on her palm. "When I want to release something icy from my hand, they glow."
"They look like buttons," Unana noticed. "What happens if you click on them?"
The clawed finger approached the palm.
"No!" Hotuka instantly appeared at her brown colleague's side and grabbed her hand.
"Aaah..." Unana growled.
"If you do that, these things will blow you up," Hotuka explained, as if she were talking about food.
"So they're not buttons," Unana sighed. "That's kind of sad. I wanted to touch them."
"They're needed to release certain elemental abilities," Hotuka let go of Unana's hand and took a few steps back. "Mine is ice, because my element is water. Ice is made of water. It helps me live in this sea. I can create ice and then walk on it, because in water I immediately go down. In water, I can only swim."
"I have the element of fire," Unana lowered both hands. "Is it needed for burning forests?"
"Yup," Hotuka waved her "paw." "The brown bear girl told me before that she burns trees with fire so they won't get in her way."
"Do you know the brown bear girl?" Yueret asked.
"Yup, this is my little sister," Hotuka answered. "She lives in the woods because it's too cold and too wet here. She can't swim at all, and she has the same name as me."
"Hotuka…" Yueret scratched his ear with his "paw."
"Yup," the bear girl also scratched her ear, but with her other, lower "paw."
"How do you tell them apart?" Unana and Yueret asked simultaneously.
"Nothing," Hotuka tilted her head and blew a cloud of icy steam from her mouth. "I haven't seen her for a long time. I used to call her Brown Hotuka or just Brown, and she called me White-Blue Hotuka, but more often just 'white-and-blue.'"
"Do you want to meet her?" Unana asked.
"Hey!" Hotuka raised her head and jumped up. "Of course I do! She's my little sis. Her head looks like yours, but it's connected to her skin."
"It's the hood," Unana said.
"Yup, your head isn't connected," Hotuka looked at the hat with the bear ears. "That means you're a temporary bear. You came here from another world to help me defeat the undead creatures."
"The word 'help' is unnecessary here," Yueret thought.
"Let's get started," Hotuka approached the older "bear cub." "You, brown one, will start the fire, and we'll wait."
Unana watched in horror as the bear girl grabbed Unana's brother by the "paw" and then dragged him into the fog. Soon, the former archer was left alone before the ice block.
"It's good it's just a game," Unana suddenly felt better. "If this bear girl takes this Yueret, the real Yueret will remain in the real world."
Unana raised her hand. The pads on her glove activated with a red glow...
Several lights erupted from the glove, quickly growing in size into small spheres in the air...
"Uh... Why didn't I think of this before?"
... Unana looked up at the sky and saw several small comets flying straight toward her...
Unana jumped back a few steps and found herself on the edge of the ice "island." But it didn't help much. The ice floe had tilted so much that it was about to capsize...
Unana fell headfirst, but somehow landed with her feet on a large ice floe that was floating near the shore.
"Brown one, you did it," a low, puffing voice from behind said.
Unana turned and saw a blue-white bear girl sitting on her knees.
"You're looking in the wrong place," Hotuka said. "You need to look this way!"
The bear girl pointed her "paw" toward the ice floe, which was no longer there, just like the "island" itself. In their place, large chunks of ice floated, and the enormous skull of a three-horned dinosaur "hung" in the air.
"Is it real?" Unana's eyebrows twitched.
"Yup... I don't remember what this thing is called, but it can definitely remove the barrier. I just feel like something's missing."
"Actually, I was asking whether this was the skull of a real animal or not," Unana continued mentally. "I don't think so. It's too big. Ahh... We're in a game. I completely forgot about that."
The skull turned to face the creatures. Unana noticed its beak that looked very much like a horn.
"This is a dinosaur skull. They all have beaks, but no horns. Yueret showed me pictures on the network of horned dinosaurs and said they don't exist anymore. By the way, where is he?"
Unana looked around, but only noticed the bear girl, who was looking at the strange object in the air with a serious expression on her face.
"There was a white-blue bear here," Unana decided to remind the bear girl of her brother.
"I'm a white-blue bear," Hotuka answered.
"No, it's a different bear, a temporary one."
"Ah… That one…"
Hotuka lowered her "paw" into the water and pulled out a white and blue jacket with a hood.
"Here," the bear girl handed Unana the wet jacket.
"This isn't the right bearry. This is his jacket."
"Why isn't it that bearry? It's fluffy."
"My brother's a meat bearry, and you just got his skin."
Hotuka sniffed the jacket, and then frowned:
"Bears are supposed to have meat under their fur, but there isn't any here."
Hotuka looked at the water, saw no signs of life, and then turned to Unana with a serious expression:
"The meat sank."
"What?"
"Don't believe her, nothing sank," a voice came from the fog.
"Yueret..."
Unana looked into the fog and saw the silhouette of a bear.
"I thought you were eaten by seals," at that moment the little sister realized that she wasn't even afraid for her brother.
"I'm too big for them," the ice floe on which Yueret stood emerged from the fog.
"You're also not tasty," Hotuka said.
"How do you know?" Unana began examining her brother to check if he still had arms and legs.
"I can tell by the smell," Hotuka explained. "Seals like the smell of meat, and he doesn't have any. He's a temporary bear, after all, and his meat is temporary. Ahh… It glowing!"
Hotuka turned sharply to the three-horned dinosaur's skull, which was now not only glowing with blue energy but also slowly rotating on its axis.
"It has these eyes..." Unana noticed. "They're about to release something."
"No, this thing doesn't release anything," Hotuka smiled. "It just spins."
The bear girl pointed her hand at the water and created an ice bridge that led straight to the skull.
"I'm going to that thing, and you turn away and don't go anywhere," Hotuka warned. "I'll take down the barrier. Don't peek. The seals will eat you."
The bear girl jumped onto the ice bridge. Her feet began to slide on the smooth surface, almost instantly landing her at the skull.
"Unana, turn away," the ice floe with Yueret floated to Unana. "The seals will eat you."
"There are no seals here," Unana looked at the water. "It's just a text. Dad wrote it to scare us. He probably thought we'd always be little."
"You'd better turn away. How do you know what kind of seals there are here? What if they're the size of whales and just swallow us up?"
Unana shuddered, as if she'd seen a hand with an eye in it, and then obediently turned away into the endless fog.
Yueret, on the other hand, didn't believe the words of the character from the game and carefully opened one eye...
...A white-blue bear-girl, her eyes closed, hung between the skull's horns. Her hood had fallen off, causing her long white-yellow hair to tremble with the energy vibrations. An energy hose protruded from her open mouth, ending somewhere at the base of her skull, giving the character a terrifying appearance...