Chapter 13. Larva That Eats Roots

Ikte left Halankuo on a cliff overlooking a river valley covered in fog. From here you could see the silhouettes of nearby trees and a building.

Kyotyoryon sank to the ground next to her creator and took on an almost human form.

"This is your village, creator?" Kyotyoryon asked.        

"I can't understand," Halankuo answered. "Everything is foggy here. Let's go down."

Kyotyoryon took the creator's words too literally and jumped off the cliff. Halankuo knew that nothing terrible would happen to her spirit, so she began to look for a path to descend.

But the path has long been overgrown, since the village was abandoned for many years. Despite this, Halankuo managed to find a relatively flat slope and descend to a tree with heart-shaped leaves.

"Creator!" Kyotyoryon's scream was heard from the fog. "I found the entrance!"

Halankuo carefully walked towards where the voice of her spirit came from. Soon Kyotyoryon was found. She was standing on a paving stone slightly overgrown with plants near the remains of a wooden house.

"There is only one street in my village," Halankuo said. "This is its beginning. My house should be at the other end."

Kyotyoryon ran along the only street covered with old, almost collapsed paving stones and disappeared into the fog. Halankuo ran after the character and caught up with her near a stone pillar with the head of a three-horned dinosaur, which stood near the entire house. The building looked like a residential building, but there were already trees growing on its roof.

"This is definitely my village," Halankuo said. "I remember this pillar."

Kyotyoryon reached the end of the village, where the last intact house stood. There she tripped over a stone that protruded strongly above the surface and was supposed to fall, but instead she took on a fighting form, rose to the height of the roof of the house, flew forward a little, returned to human form and landed on her feet.

"She can already do something," Halankuo noted. "It looks like I didn't walk with her in vain." In "Mausoleum of Nature" it is written that when a character performs some actions, he learns, gains new skills and improves old ones."

Halankuo approached the last house at the end of the village. The wooden fence had long since rotted and did not prevent entry into the yard, but the vegetation that was densely overgrown in the yard interfered.

Along a path of stones, which was not very overgrown, Halankuo approached a porch consisting of rotten boards, two wooden columns and a leaky canopy. The entrance to the house was closed by an old but strong wooden door.

Halankuo climbed onto the porch carefully, so as not to fall through due to the rotten boards, and then ran her finger through the air near the door handle. A virtual lock with a code field appeared in front of the door. The girl entered the code and turned the doorknob. The lock disappeared, after which the door opened.

Halankuo entered the house and found herself in an almost dark corridor. The girl turned on the light using the interface and was surprised at what she saw. The corridor was entangled in numerous layers of cobwebs that blocked the passage. Halankuo had to remove the cobwebs with a wrench and several bolts of lightning to get into the kitchen.

In the kitchen, near the wall, there was a low round table with an empty bottle and a wooden bowl on it. There was almost no light coming through the single round window due to the thick layer of cobwebs.

Halankuo no longer remembered where her room or bathroom was. The girl left the house and saw Kyotyoryon, who was standing on the path and holding in her hands a purple translucent energy card with a black rod inside, which emitted a faint glow.

"This is it, data storage card," the girl rejoiced. "Of course, it's unlikely that this is the same card I was looking for, but what if I get lucky?"

"Where did you find this?" Halankuo pointed to the card.

"In the bushes," Kyotyoryon answered. "I was walking along the road and felt that there was metal somewhere nearby. I picked this thing up because there's metal in it, which means it's mine. I'm the spirit of metal."

Halankuo walked up to Kyotyoryon and touched the card with her hand. The card stopped glowing and then disappeared. A moment later, the metal spirit's eyes stopped blinking. Kyotyoryon dropped her hands and fell to the ground.

Halankuo crouched down and looked at her character. The spirit of metal laid on its back and looked at one point, like a doll.

***

The railway station was shrouded in thick fog. Tuot and Etinnei were sitting on a bench under the canopy and holding hands.

"Where is Itinit?" the dinosaur asked. "I can see almost nothing here. In the city there was better visibility."

"You also see almost nothing?" Etinnei sniffed the air. "It smells like water."

"It's fog. Have you never seen him?"

"I saw it. But I thought that the transparency of the air in my eyes had decreased."

Tuot noticed the silhouette of a man in the fog. The dinosaur let go of his girlfriend's hand, stood up from the bench and jumped back. His heart began to beat faster.

"Tuot, there is no need to summon on the aura," Itinit's voice was heard.

The silhouette began to approach Etinnei and Tuot, and soon turned into Itinit. Tuot recognized his friend and calmed down.

"I hope the train won't be canceled because of such thick fog," Itinit said.

"Will we be able to see him?" Etinnei asked.

"The train has lamps, and they glow," Itinit explained. "But even if we don't see the train with the lamps, we'll definitely hear it. At this time, only one train arrives at this station."

After some time, a long beep was heard. Then several yellow rays of light "pierced" through the fog.

Itinit took out three blue-green energy cards from his inventory and gave two of them to Tuot and Etinnei.

"Click on the big circle on the card," Itinit said.

Etinnei pressed the large circle in the middle of the card. A frame appeared above it with a diagram of the train and the location of the passenger.

"With the help of this diagram you can find your carriage and place," Itinit said.

"I don't understand where to press," Tuot complained.

"You know how to play games," Etinnei noted. "But you can't figure it out."

"It's a game, there's a touch screen," Tuot objected. "But here it's somehow unclear."

"Just click on the circle in the middle of the card," Itinit said.

"Which circle?" Tuot brought the card closer to his face, but could not understand where the circle was.

"Look at him from the side," Itinit advised. "But you don't have to look. Our places are located nearby. If we find one place, we will find the rest."

Tuot removed the card from his face and moved it to the left.

"I see!" the dinosaur shouted. "I found it!"

"Don't shout," Itinit said. "The cry of a dinosaur can frighten people, especially children."

Tuot became scared. He did not like human children because of Halankuo, who tormented him as a pet as a child.

The carriage consisted of a corridor and small compartments, each of which had four shelves and a small table. At first, Tuot was afraid that the compartment door might crush his tail, but when he entered there, he realized that there was enough room even for a long-tailed dinosaur.

"The rooms in this carriage are almost the same as on the ship," Itinit said. "They are designed for long journeys. You can sleep on these shelves."

"I've never traveled in such cars before," Tuot said. "The trains I traveled on had only carriages with seats."

"I hope you can survive here for at least a day," Itinit said. "But if you survive two days, you will arrive in Munmut."

"I can't stand even half a day in this room," Tuot said.

"It's still normal here," Etinnei noted. "I traveled from the Southern Continent in a large dark box for several days."

"What were you doing there?" Tuot asked. 

"What I usually do," the animal girl answered. "I played games, watched videos and pictures. I had access to my interface, and therefore to the screen. But the network did not always work."

Tuot laid down on the shelf and noticed that it was too short for him. His tail hung over the shelf and almost touched the wall.

"Why are these trains inconvenient for dinosaurs?" Tuot asked.

"Trains are made by people," Itinit answered. "There are many more people than dinosaurs. Their sizes are more compact. But you don't need to worry. You fit in this room. And if something doesn't fit, it's a tail, and your tail won't break."

Tuot found that nothing bothered him. The room, although it looked small and cramped, now seemed like some semblance of housing.

The train slowly left the station. The fog gradually dissipated, and it was already possible to see something in it.

Etinnei sat near the window and looked out of it. For her, the landscape outside the window was something new and unusual. Coniferous forests that covered the plains and mountains in almost continuous masses, rivers with gray-blue water through which the train traveled on energy bridges, pillars with glowing virtual symbols – all this was so different from the landscapes of the Southern Continent that it seemed to her like another world...

... Etinnei was so carried away by the views from the window that she did not notice Tuot, who was looking at her with interest.

The dinosaur still did not believe that such unusual and beautiful creatures as this arctic fox girl existed in reality. But what surprised him most was that this was his playmate. Ever since Tuot first logged onto the network and saw images of animal girls, he had dreamed of meeting one of them. And now the arctic fox girl was sitting in front of him, like a character in a game - she was sitting, but did not notice that he was looking at her.

The movements of the train, which was moving quickly along the rails, rocked Tuot. The dinosaur began to fall asleep...

... Tuot found himself on a cliff, near a crooked coniferous tree. From there was a view of a narrow river that had not yet frozen. Only rare ice floes floated with the current and carried away the cold lizards. Across the river, a snow-covered coniferous forest stretched to the horizon.

Tuot went down to the river and saw a cave in the rock on the shore, covered with a thin layer of snow. There was an oblong wooden box in it, and in it was some kind of creature. The dinosaur came closer and realized that this box was actually a coffin, and the creature was a girl with white-yellow hair and small animal ears on the top of her head. The rest of the body was covered with snow and therefore not visible.

 "This is an arctic fox girl," Tuot guessed. "Is she real?"

The dinosaur approached the coffin and looked at the girl's face. Her eyes were closed, and no breath was coming from her nose.

"Is she dead or just frozen?" Tuot thought. "I wonder what she's wearing."

The dinosaur scraped the snow that covered the girl's body with its upper paws and saw a furry white and blue jacket, fur shorts and thick bare legs with small feet.

"If she's dead, I can eat her," Tuot thought. "Her meat looks very tasty!"

The girl opened her eyes and grabbed Tuot's feathers with her hand.

"I'm not edible," the girl said.

Tuot looked at her and stepped back a little. His tail reached the wall of the cave and did not allow him to retreat further.

The girl's body was covered with a white-blue aura, assumed a vertical position, rose above the coffin, and then landed on a layer of snow.

"Are you cold?" Tuot asked.

"No," the animal girl answered. "My legs feel almost nothing."

Tuot looked at the girl's legs and imagined how the severed leg lay in front of him on a plate.

"Do you want to eat me?" the girl asked.

"No," Tuot turned away.

"Then why are you looking at my legs like that?"

... Tuot woke up and realized that he was lying on a shelf in a train compartment that was going somewhere. The dinosaur looked out the window and remembered that yesterday he got on the train with his friends and went to another city.

The train was traveling along a high embankment among the swamps. Low coniferous trees grew on hummocks surrounded by puddles of brown water.

Tuot woke up and saw Etinnei, who was sleeping on the bottom bunk opposite. She curled up into a ball and held her own tail in her hand. Itinit was sleeping on the shelf above.

"I again dreamed of an arctic fox girl who looked like Etinnei," Tuot thought. "Maybe it was Etinnei herself? But this is impossible. I haven't seen her before, so she couldn't have appeared in my dream."

Looking at the scenery outside the window made the dinosaur want to sleep again. Tuot tried to resist this, but could not...

... Tuot woke up and discovered that this time he had not had a dream. The dinosaur was still on the train, but the scenery outside the window had changed greatly. Instead of forests and swamps, a gray rocky plain appeared, covered here and there with thickets of thorny bushes.

Tuot has never seen an area without trees. This landscape seemed lifeless and even scary to him against the background of the cloudy sky.

Etinnei also looked out the window. Itinit was not in the compartment.

"Do you know why there are no trees here?" Etinnei asked.

"Perhaps there is a creature here that feeds on tree roots?" Tuot suggested. "I read about him somewhere. But I don't remember where exactly."

"In the game we played. There is a desert there that was formed due to a giant larva."

"Exactly, so this larva came here from the game?"

Itinit entered the room and interrupted the stupid conversation.

"Congrats!" Itinit said. "You survived. We'll be arriving in Munmut soon."

The train approached a wide river, along the banks of which grew narrow strips of forest with thorny green trees. A blue translucent energy bridge appeared between the platforms on both banks. The train moved slowly along it.

"Why do trees grow on the river bank?" Etinnei asked. "Isn't there a larva there?"

"Apparently, the larva is afraid of water," Tuot suggested.

Etinnei looked at Itinit. She doubted that the larva could have gotten here from the game and was waiting for a refutation.

"These are not trees," Itinit answered. "These plants have no wood. They are hollow inside."

"Their insides were eaten by a larva," Etinnei was frightened.

The train crossed the river and drove slowly through stone warehouses with numerous boxes, after which it arrived at the railway station. A large stone terminal with a dome stood next to several tracks, adjacent to covered platforms with columns.

"We will have to go out soon," Itinit said. "We arrived. When the train stops, follow me."

The train stopped. The doors of the carriages opened and passengers began to get out. Itinit led Tuot and Etinnei out of the train and into the station building.

Inside, the station looked like a huge cave with stone icicles hanging from the ceiling, which emitted a white glow and illuminated the room. Several corridors led off from the cave in different directions. Itinit led his friends through one of them and soon all three found themselves on the bank of a wide river, near a stone platform. Across the river, the city began. Towers and pyramids stood in even rows along the shore, and behind them could be seen even larger buildings of the same shape.

"This is one of the main entrances to the city," Itinit said. "In order to get to the other side, you have to cross the river."

"Do we have to go to the city?" asked Tuot. "It looks too big. You could probably get lost there."

"We need somewhere to spend the night," Itinit explained. "We still need to eat."

Etinnei looked at the city with bulging eyes and did not move.

"What happened to you?" Itinit asked the arctic fox girl.

"Is there a real city across the river?" Etinnei sniffed the air.

"Yes," Itinit answered. "Have you seen such cities yet?"

"That's not what I'm talking about," Etinnei moved her ears on top of her head. "I saw similar buildings, but it was in the game. What are the buildings from the game doing here?"

Itinit smiled. Etinnei turned her head in his direction, but without her torso.

"The buildings in the game are just virtual models," Itinit answered. "They are not necessarily related to real objects. If you were transferred from the program to the real world, this does not mean that everything in the real world was transferred from the program."

Etinnei scratched her hand behind the arctic fox's ear.

"I was scared," the animal girl explained. "I thought we were in a game."

Itinit turned away so that no one would see his smile.

"Etinnei is so naive," Itinit thought. "She's a good fit for Tuot."