“Even from here it stinks of shit,” Karina said, grimacing at the breeze. “Maybe just ditch it?”

An overgrown road led to a rotten wooden palisade. The midday sunlight, even from afar, clearly picked out the offensive brown graffiti on the walls. On the road sign, instead of the name of the town, someone's signature flaunted, clearly interrupting several previous ones.

“Wow,” Belyana giggled. “What have you done with my Karina? Do you think it will dissolve on its own?”

“I don't know,” she hesitated. “But the place is just ugly.”

In the middle of the open gates, squatting, was a grubby, stocky, half-naked man. At first glance, it might seem that he was just tired, but in fact he defecated right on the road. Hearing footsteps, he raised his head to see the source of the sound.

“What the hell are you looking at, herring?” with a taunt, he asked. “Have you never seen a person shitting? Get the fuck out of here.”

“You actually sat down in the aisle,” Karina answered, ignoring his tone. “You don't want to move?”

“What the fuck? Come here, whore!” he barked.

He jumped up, straight with the remains of feces still falling off.

Karina suddenly vomited. Trembling, and breathing deeply, she sank to the ground.

There was a short howl, more like a cry from hell. A fox, no smaller than an elephant, jumped out from behind the town gates and simply bit off the rude man’s head. His body, in convulsions, fell into its own excrement, spattering the earth with scarlet blood. With a loud sound, the beast swallowed his head.

“Frightened the girl,” the fox said, starting to transform into a human.

She had turned into a tall, muscular woman, with bright orange, thick, knee-length hair. Naked. All her snow-white skin was covered in numerous scars, and in place of her right eye there was a disgusting scar in the shape of an anus rather than a star. The left eye was yellow, with a characteristic narrow animal pupil. Surprise showed on her face when she looked at Belyana.

“What the hell are you doing here?”

Belyana ignored her, instead patting Karina on the head.

“Maybe I really shouldn’t have dragged you here,” Belyana said to Karina. “Do you feel better?”

Still breathing heavily, Karina nodded and slowly stood up.

“There is a domain actually,” Belyana finally answered the woman. “Much more interesting, what did you forget here?”

“Ahh,” she drawled with understanding, “I thought maybe they found some mushrooms, but they didn’t share with me. I’m pretty sure people have always behaved this way.”

Having sniffed comically, she walked around Karina from all sides, looking at her like a museum piece.

“Last time there was more heavenish look,” she finally said. “New soap?”

“She doesn’t even understand what you mean,” Belyana giggled over the puzzled Karina.

“Oh, really? Sorry, sorry,” the woman answered feignedly, after which she turned back to Karina. “In that case, you can call me Fox, nice to meet you.”

“I'm Karina. And why a fox?”

“Wow, where is all ‘I will burn everything down to the molecules until only the chosen ones remain’?”

“I told you - Alpha died out a little,” Belyana answered her.

“Mmm ...” Fox mumbled. “Well, because I'm half-human, half-fox. And anticipating moronic questions, it's none of your business which parent fucked the animal.”

“I didn’t even intend to ...” Karina answered dumbfounded. “I'm talking about why not by name?”

“So that this one,” she pointed to Belyan, “And didn’t spoil you until now, ha! Oh well, because I’m Beafoxpowdeterwisdetera.”

“I see,” Karina replied. “Nice to meet you, Fox.”

“What do you mean ‘didn’t spoil until now’?” Belyana asked in a feigned offended tone. “Have you seen yourself in the mirror at all? You have a chicken butt instead of an eye!”

“Ouch.”

And they moved into a town.

Everything around the main road was covered in mud and trash. In some places only ashes remained from the houses, in some - on rotten wooden logs, from which most of the houses were built, either cut or gnawed holes were visible.

The houses that looked most decent were hung with peculiar decorations. Somewhere they were heads strung on a rope, like bagels, somewhere they were simply cut off scalps nailed.

There were no bystanders. Only occasionally curtains swayed in the windows, through which the inhabitants glanced at the street.

“And, apparently, this is the answer,” Belyana said with understanding. “Aren't you ashamed at all, to assert yourself at the expense of ordinary people?”

“Well, I don’t argue that it is a lot of fun here, but they always start themselves,” Fox answered.

“Yeah, especially the one in the aisle.”

“Who knows what he would have done with this sweet girl?” Fox pointed to Karina.

“How about - nothing?” Belyana knocked out from under her a shaky brick of justifications. “With her power, she's the last person to be threatened by anything.”

“Well, okaaay,” surrendered Fox. “He just already shitted the whole town. At first I wanted to feed him his own feces - I even got a whole barrel, but then I got tired of it.”

“Did you see it?” Belyana turned to Karina. “And after that you’ll say that I treat people with disdain?”

“Both of you are terrible,” Karina sighed under their friendly laughter. “It would be better to be alone than to listen to this all the time, but besides you, no one knows where and how to look for broken wizards.”

“Speaking of loneliness,” Belyana said and looked at Fox. “Shoo! Why did you get involved?”

“Like hell,” she replied unhappily. “Someone last time evaporated without paying.”

“And you decided that importunity would help the cause?”

“Exactly!” Fox laughed. “You have to pay when you promise.”

“Whatever,” Belyana answered indifferently. “Just do not turn into an animal - you stink in this form, like a dirty dog.”

A bloody star appeared on Fox's lip - in an attempt to ignore frank childishness, she bit her lip too hard with a fang.

“And get dressed,” Belyana added. - Doesn’t matter with this garbage dump - it seems that no one cares here, but in other places, at least, they won’t understand.

“Why not doggy style also?” quipped Fox. “There were still not enough comments about decency from someone who wears clothes until they are rubbed into dust. At the same time, without washing them at all. The last time we met, you smelled like a corpse, I can’t even imagine how Karina can stand it.”

“Ah, everything is very simple here,” Belyana giggled. “You're the only one this stink was meant for. The harder you breathe - the less you talk.”

The fox's eye even twitched. However, there was no more sluggish throwing of barbs, because they came to the place. A tent was set up right on the street. At the entrance, closed for some reason by an iron hatch, a bearded man was sitting on a stool and dozing. Next to him, a sign stuck out of the ground, on which there were several large numbers, apparently the prices, and in small print, each number was signed for what exactly.

“Ah, it’s here,” said the Fox, not particularly surprised, after which she barked at the man. “Wake up dog!”

“What, who?” he jumped up, not understanding what was happening. “What do you want, redhead?”

“Open the hatch,” she replied. “Your small business has just been liquidated.”

“I don’t remember that I closed it,” he answered irritably. “Either pay or get lost.”

“Have you completely gone nuts already?” Fox asked, raising an eyebrow.

“It seems you’re the one who’s already fucked up the edge,” he answered, getting up from the stool, and cracking his fingers in his hands.

Fox sighed in annoyance. He approached her, determined to punish the troublemaker, but he turned out to be almost a head shorter, and against the background of Fox's athletic physique, he looked more like a child. It was more like a lap-dog decided to mark a Rottweiler as its territory.

He swung to hit her.

There was a sound like a pop. The Fox shook off from her hand his body, which had lost the upper half. Almost as soon as it fell, a mushroom rain of blood began to fall, accompanied by wet slaps of torn pieces of innards.

“Further we go, worse it becomes,” Karina only commented, brushing a piece of a kidney from her shoulder. “For some reason I'm not surprised at all.”

“But I made it clear to them all that they are dealing with a polyanitsa,” Fox sighed again and looked at Belyana. “Well, it looks like you're not fucking with me after all.”

“You said that like I even know how to lie!” Belyana exclaimed, pretending to be offended.

Fox just looked at her, tilting her head to the side in disapproval.

“Polyanitsa?” Karina showed interest after all.

“Huh, a walking encyclopedia travels with you ...” Fox was surprised, and then laughed. “Although, yep, no matter how hard you push her - she doesn’t gush anything but shit, nothing new.

Well, actually, I'm a witch. However, instead of cool magic, the sight of which people immediately shit in their pants - I only have unhealthy physical strength, which, however, also makes people shit in their pants. And besides that, even if I really want to, I can’t create a domain, so I just called myself a proud word.”

“And what's the point exactly?” Belyana asked. “What has changed from this information, besides the fact that we stood and sniffed this garbage a little longer? Open that door already.”

“You wouldn’t tell anything, even if the Earth fell on the Sun,” Fox answered, rummaging through the pockets of the body lying on the ground.

“And even more so, what's the point? As if someone could miss such an event.”

“Okay, here you caught me,” Fox answered annoyed, turning the key in the hatch.”

From the open passage immediately smelled of a disgusting mixture of chlorine and sweat. In the semi-darkness, on the floor, a girl of about twenty was lying in a crouch. Her clothes were torn, bruises and scratches were visible here and there on her body, and there were already dried traces of blood on her thighs.

“In principle, I thought so,” Belyana commented on what she saw, after which she turned to Fox. “You seem to know this place, how much did you spend here?”

“Your jokes sometimes go beyond all boundaries,” she answered with a sigh. “I thought they were fucking a corpse here. It’s awkward.”

“Yeeep,” Belyana drawled. “As if one warrior of justice is not enough here. First of all, it was because of her that people gone ape.

And why are you just hanging around?” she asked Karina. “Get inside.”

“I’m going, I’m going,” Karina muttered. "Though I'll probably regret it."

Trying not to breathe, she repeated her ritual.

She found herself in the middle of a world that seemed to be painted in pastel - delicate strokes of light-green grass and a hastily drawn sky, through which pink clouds slowly floated.

There was a muffled clatter of hooves. Turning to its source, Karina found a unicorn, happily chewing on local grass. Every step he took created iridescent sparks, and around his horn butterflies circled in a small whirlwind.

“Such nonsense,” said Karina aloud. “Horsy, horsy, where’s your owner?”

The frightened fairy-tale beast took off, galloping off wherever his eyes looked. Karina did not find anything better than to follow the rainbow trail after him. The pastel world was replaced by watercolor, and then it completely became like the drawings of small children, in which it was difficult to find at least some familiar image.

Finally, the puzzled Karina stopped. She probably thought the direction was wrong.

“Hellooo!” she listened in the direction where the rainbow trails led, but the sound still did not return. “Such. Non. Sense.”

She stamped her foot on the ground, causing it to tremble. One more time, one more time, one more time. Sky and earth parted in half, a wide crack from which liquid blackness flowed. Karina, having warmed up, as if before a swim, jumped into it.

In the next second, a huge toad eye was already looking at her. She backed away slowly, trying not to startle the amphibian. From a short distance, Karina managed to make out the growths on the skin of the toad - these were gems of various colors, because of which even the toad shimmered like a rainbow in the light.

“What the hell you looking at?” the monster asked lazily in a vibrating voice. “Disappear somewhere, you interfere with admiring the sunset.”

Karina automatically turned her head and saw, instead of the sun, swarming luminous larvae, which took the form of a circle. Instead of clouds, snails crawled across the brown sky.

“Your sunset is cree–” she didn’t have time to finish, as the toad simply ate her.

Karina fell on the bed. In the stomach of the toad, surprisingly, there was a small room, lit only by a working monitor. The light snatched garbage bags from the floor, and all sorts of candy wrappers, which no longer found a place in the bags. The mountain of dishes on the table was about to fall, but a little girl, sitting in an armchair and clapping on the keyboard, managed to coexist peacefully with this design. She giggled in a whisper.

“What's there?” Karina asked.

“I wrote to the fat pig that she should eat less, and in the end other fat pigs came running to protect her,” at first the girl answered without a second thought, and then she got scared. “Who is there?!”

She flipped on a light switch that was on the wall next to the table and turned abruptly. Pus was slowly dripping from her eyes, and her face was covered with warts. Karina flinched in surprise.

“Why write nasty things to people?” asked, coming to her senses, Karina.

“Not nasty things, but the truth!” the girl frowned. “If not me, then who? They live in their own fantasy world, they eat for three, and they justify themselves with any kind of heresy.”

“Really?” Karina asked sarcastically, in whose hands a large mirror appeared. “What do you see here?”

“Myself and thin!” she answered fairly. “What's up? Maybe you will forbid me to talk at all - will we return to the Middle Ages?”

The mirror shattered into glittering sparks.

“Well, then I'll tell you straight out that you're as ugly as a war. You even shouldn’t show yourself to people with such a face.”

“Fuck yourself,” the girl replied. “I have a boyfriend, when you can only dream to get one, because, unlike you, I'm just beautiful.”

“Don’t you think it’s at least hypocritical?” Karina asked with a sigh. “You don’t care for freedom, but for elementary impunity. The judge of all judges, while anyone but you are pieces of shit that should serve you. I know one such ideology - it has nothing to do with freedom. Who is stronger is righter, yeah.”

“It’s like I’m forcing someone to read, let alone react,” she answered irritably. “I am free to speak, they are free not to listen.”

“I am free to beat you, you are free to endure,” Karina immediately retorted. “Where is the difference?”

With a crash of glass shards, the toad's paw broke through the curtained window, grabbed Karina, and threw her out of his stomach.

Having flown from a dozen meters, Karina landed on the ground squishing under her. Under her feet was a shiny pink soft surface, covered with thin red streaks.

“Maybe we can ta–” she didn’t have time to finish, as the toad butted her with head at a breakneck speed.

“All the same dance,” she said to herself under her breath, flying in the air and seeing the toad chasing her, obviously going to butt forever.

Karina slightly shook her hands, from which rainbow droplets fell. She managed to catch one of the droplets and, folding it between her fingers, she slowly stretched it until it turned into a kind of whistle.

The toad prevented Karina from landing, hitting her with his forehead like a ball.

Karina whistled almost like an ultrasound, which even hurt her ears.

This only pissed off the toad more. Instead of catching up, he just jumped. In the blink of an eye, having overcome a small distance between him and the intruder, he was over Karina, in an unknown way pressed her with his paws and flew down like a bomb.

They landed rather softly, but the satisfied toad that sat on Karina did not leave her any more chance to do anything.

From all sides there was a clatter of hooves. An entire army of unicorns ran towards their landing site. Iridescent puffs of dust rose behind them, and the pink earth, which somehow allowed for clattering at all, turned into pastel grass behind them.

The contented face of the toad was again replaced by furious. He angrily stomped on the ground, every now and then, hitting Karina, but he did not even think of moving anywhere.

The brave unicorns charged at him, using their horns as the only weapon they had. Butterflies tried to suck out the toad's eyes, but, unfortunately, their proboscis was not capable of this.

The toad, with some kind of guttural cries, writhed, scattered enemies, grabbed with its tongue and devoured those it could reach, but the army only arrived and arrived. Eventually, strung on a thousand horns, after a few mournful sobs, he calmed down in death.

“Well, you had a face,” the first thing Fox said when Karina returned. “If someone warned me that it will be so nauseating, I would at least take a paper bag with me, to put it on your head.”

Karina looked inquiringly at Belyana.

“Didn’t I already say that not everything is worth knowing?” she giggled.

“Yah you. Am I supposed to take two of you now?”

“Why why,” mockingly replied Fox. “You should actually thank me. Knowing her,” she pointed to Belyana, “you always do everything, and she only scoffs and walks like a turkey, as if she had at least some relation to your work. Help for you, fun for me - kind of fair deal.”

“At least she finally confessed,” said Belyana. “‘Where is my money’, yeeep. You just love beating people. And when they can't answer, your tummy gets warmer too.”

“Miss Turkey is back in business, she will measure everyone with her snobbishness,” Fox answered only.

The girl, who until that moment had shown no signs of life, began to sob. Karina, choosing between her and the unhealthy squabbling of two strange women, leaned towards the first option.

“What's happened?” Karina asked her.

“Why do I even live?” sob, “What's the meaning?”

“Fuck your mother!” Fox exclaimed. “You can do whatever and however you want. If you want, you can even declare war on some country and perfectly deal with it alone. You're a goddamn witch! Just don't be obsessed with anything.”

“Actually,” said Belyana, “I agree with her on that.”

“How about,” Karina said angrily, “That you both get the fuck out of here?”

“All right, all right,” Belyana capitulated, after which she turned to Fox. “Treat me with some tea, will you? Called yourself a witch - arrange tea parties. She's here for the long haul.”