Just a glance at the status of the creature that outscaled the current me in many aspects and yet had the appearance of a harmless, if anything a little spooky crow, made me feel a little depressed. Naturally, it was not a crow, far from it. It was once a monster, an animalistic monster with lightning, wind, and ice elemental inclinations. It had its current size and appearance only because this was the appearance I believed was more acceptable than its true form, which was far bigger and more imposing than its current one, which fit more to the need I had for this creature. Yes, shrinking and manipulating the size of my shadow creature summon was something my innate ability, [Spawn], allowed me to do.

"Come on, me," I said, trying to dispel that depressive thought flowing in, "even though this is indeed depressing and somewhat infuriating, this is better than nothing. Remember, you could've ended with nothing — like really nothing at all."

That's right, with what happened that made me share this body with Aiden, I had all my skills brought down to level 01, almost as though they've been reinitialized. The same thing happened to my abilities. Well, maybe not the same thing, but it wasn't wrong to say that they were similar since, unlike skills which were expressed in levels, abilities were expressed with either an unlocked or locked status. In light of this, all my abilities which I acquired through titles were brought down to their initial status, with only the basic variation of the bestowed abilities unlocked, while the rest were locked. This was no different than my skills being brought down to level 1.

As for my other abilities—innate abilities, since the classless state that I was had no class-bestowed abilities, they weren't locked; they were left unlocked. However, that didn't mean that they hadn't undergone a negative development like my skill and title-acquired abilities did.

For my main innate ability, which was [Spawn]—an ability that allowed me to turn entities that I've defeated into a shadow creature variant of them that I would then be able to summon at will — I've lost contact with all the shadow creatures that I've thus far managed to "tame," making me no longer able to summon any of them. Another tragic case of reinitialization. The only reason I was able to control Crow—a shadow creature that I've acquired for some time now, far before what happened—was because Crow was not a shadow creature I summoned. Well, I did summon it, but not with [Spawn] in its current, reinitialized state. Crow had been summoned before my skill was reinitialized and was maintained in the real world since, which is, I suppose, the reason for which it didn't blip away along with my other formerly available shadow creature summons.

Truth be told, since I didn't immediately attempt to summon my shadow creatures, due to the existing connection I had with Crow, it took me longer than I would've liked to admit to notice that my shadow creatures were gone. Well, one can't really blame me for that; after all, my connection with Crow didn't seem severed, I had no immediate reason to suspect that it had been the case with the others. Had I known that things would've taken such a development, I would've had all my summons materialized into Fiendfell. That would've spared me the fate of losing them, but alas, things were what they were, and here I was: summonless.

Truth be said, in the current state of things, I didn't even dare summon Crow back into me. I feared that upon unsummoning him, I may no longer be able to manifest the shadow creature back into existence, which is why for the past few days since I noticed the missing summon and took note of the existing link between Crow and me, I, instead of unsummoning him, which would've had the effect of teleporting him to me, had him fly to my side. Due to Dungeon Master 02's teleportation and the path we took along the way, there was quite the distance built between him and me. I really lucked out on this one, for the shadow creature I summon through [Spawn] doesn't come with a time limit or an M.P. expenditure like most summons like familiars do. Because if they did, I would have had to eventually unsummon him or he would eventually unsummon himself, thus causing me to lose my last summon, thus making me truly summonless.

Of course, I could always try to acquire new summons. I planned to, but it was not unreasonable to say that I was not in my best form to do so, and I had the feeling that it would be the case for some time in the future. Meaning that had I not at least luckily kept Crow as I did, I would've stayed summonless for a long while. So yes, Crow's presence was a huge relief.

For now, aside from the fact that most of my summons were no longer summonable, the ability [Spawn] seemed to work exactly as it should: allowing me to issue commands and communicate with my available summons, even though they actually outscaled me in almost all status aspects. One of the first things I made use of Crow for was to have him investigate what I could not. In the past few days, I, by just observing where the caregivers are taking the little girl and Aiden, what they do with them, have come to a preliminary conclusion: For the time being, this place, putting aside all the reservations and prejudices I have against anything that is closely related to Theta, felt that this place looks oddly great for what it's supposed to be: an orphanage. The fact that Aiden so quickly accommodated himself to it, save the tantrum he throws now and then when he is reminded of home, was proof of that. They were fed regularly, closely watched over, taken care of, provided with tools, and even basics for them to start building an education upon. This place looked like, if that even exists, like a seemingly perfect orphanage. Yes, "seemingly," that was the extent where I dare to praise this place.

With Theta as one of the funders of this orphanage, there was no way this place was just a nice place for the sake of it. There had to be a catch somewhere. It was to figure out where that catch lay that I had Crow fly around the orphanage to check out places Aiden and the girl were not taken to — in other words, most of the orphanage's complex. In the past few days we've been here, out of all the structures in the village-shaped estate, they've been mostly taken to three of them. The dormitory Aiden currently occupied on his own was the entirety of the complex that apparently should've been the boys' dormitory, while the girl, Celestina, occupied the building that should've been the girls' dormitory. Other than in these two dormitories, they would spend most of their time in the large building we were received in with Dungeon Master 07 back then, which the ground floor was used mostly as a refectory and most of the upper rooms were used as what I could tell would be in the future classrooms.

This novel's true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.

Other than these three buildings, there were also the ascetics' dormitories where the director and the caregivers lived. That structure, along with the three aforementioned structures and a last one, were the five actually finished structures of the village-like estate; the other complexes were still in the process of being built.

Out of the five structures, I was most interested in the ascetic quarters and very particularly in the structure that resembled a typical warehouse but on a very large scale. I was curious about what might be stored in it, as I had a feeling that inside could be everything needed to furnish all the complexes that were currently in the process of being built.

Speaking of structures being built, it was more or less possible to tell what they planned some structures to be. For example, there was one that I could tell was going to be a large greenhouse, and another that, through Crow's scouting, concluded was going to be an indoor gymnasium with an indoor pool. As for the others, I couldn't yet tell what they planned for them, which is why I wanted to investigate the structure where I believed all the furniture that will eventually furnish these rooms were. However, it was regrettable that I found myself at an impasse.

While Crow was able to carry out investigations I had him carry out thus far, he was able to do them effectively because they were very simple missions, like flying above and peering over from up above places that Aiden and, by extension, I, had no access to. So naturally, missions which consist of identifying what's in a tightly closed structure were something beyond Crow's scope of abilities. Obviously, the "closed" part was definitely not the problematic bit; Crow didn't lack the skill or abilities to pry that door open, but that would be contrary to how I wanted this mission to be carried out: discreetly.

Thinking about the impasse I found myself in, I couldn't help but sigh. As I did, the shadow creature atop my arm let out a suppressed caw.

"I know it's not your fault," I muttered.

"Caw... Caw," the crow responded.

"That won't do," I replied.

"Caw... Caw!"

"It still won't do. Assuming you successfully pull it off, she'll eventually wake up, won't she? Your plan is to temporarily neutralize her for the time for you to inspect the building, right? Not kill her, right? No doubt that the first thing she'll do upon waking up is report the incident to her superiors. Trust me, it'll be no time before the news reaches the ears of the person I want it to end up in."

"Caw..."

"Glad you understand."

As my conversation with the crow came to an end, a strange realization dawned on me: Did I just have a discussion with my summon? Since when did I start to do that?

As I asked myself that question, an answer almost immediately manifested itself into existence in my mind. Looking at my little left hand, which belonged to Aiden, I couldn't help but wonder, "Just how far have you corrupted me, little one? I never did that before you came along..."

As I was momentarily lost in contemplation, I was interrupted by an animalistic noise that did not come from Crow, prompting Crow and me to almost immediately shift our focus to our intruder. "Miaou." Instead, it came from a much more presentable creature.

A rather chunky cat of orange and white climbed up to my window and nonchalantly entered the room without a single regard for either me or Crow. Staring at the cat, for a moment, my mind went into overthinking mode, but soon I realized that I was indeed overthinking. This was most likely just a random cat. So, taking my attention away from the cat, I sighed and said, "Anyway, I appreciate the enthusiasm, but your suggestion won't do."

The crow nodded.

"Tsk, this really makes me miss the other summon."

In what used to be my available summoning catalogue, even though it seemed as limitless as it was back in our Dungeon Core days, I didn't lack summons that would have been more than perfect to handle this mission. I had incorporeal ones, sneaky ones, mind-controlling ones—I really didn't lack summons that would have been perfect for this job. Now they're all gone. Sigh, this is truly depressing. Sure, sure, I can always rebuild myself, reacquire these summons I've lost by defeating monsters, entities, turning them into shadow creatures that would be mine to order around, but that was something for the future. I don't see myself doing that in the present state of things. And still, there was not any time before where I felt the need to acquire summons more than I did today. But where do I find that? In my current and very "weakened" state, the only thing that I was very confident in defeating by myself were very weak monsters or even less regular animals. But where do I find that? We sure are in the middle of nowhere, but it wasn't like the middle I've exiled myself to in the past few years, where monsters popped up regularly due to the neighboring Dungeon. This place was definitely not the place where one could find creatures fitting the "stealthy" criteria I was looking for roaming around randomly. Or so I thought until my train of thought was interrupted by, once again, a noise that did not come from Crow.

"Miaou."

Most likely having come to the same realization as me, Crow and I slowly turned in the direction of the sound we heard to see the cat in the middle of the room. Perhaps finally coming to realize that all the focus was on him, the cat turned around before seemingly freezing in place.

"Caw?"

"Yes, Crow. Caw."