Ren didn't wake up to the sound of a system chime. He woke up because he was being suffocated by something warm, heavy, and incredibly fluffy.
His eyes snapped open, but his vision was obscured by a mass of silver-white hair. He tried to draw a breath, only to inhale a mouthful of fur.
"Mmph!" Ren struggled, his hands coming up to push the weight off his chest.
"Ren-ni! You're awake! You're awake!"
A high-pitched, energetic voice chirped right in his ear. The weight shifted, and Ren finally managed to sit up, gasping for air. He looked down and froze. Sitting cross-legged on his stomach was a boy who looked no older than eight. He had messy silver hair, a pair of oversized, twitching wolf ears, and a bushy tail that was currently thumping against Ren's thighs with the force of a small sledgehammer.
Ren stared. The boy stared back with wide, liquid-silver eyes that sparkled with pure, unadulterated mischief.
"Who...?" Ren started, his voice raspy from the mana exhaustion of the summoning.
"I'm Erna!" the boy announced, puffing out his chest. He reached forward and grabbed Ren's nose with a small, pale hand. "And you're my big brother! You smell like shadows and iron. I like iron. Do you have any iron?"
Ren gently pried the boy's hand off his face. He remembered the emerald light, the S-Rank Willpower, and the Summoner's Key. This was his partner. His contract-beast. But looking at the kid trying to see if Ren's ear was edible, "beast" felt like the wrong word.
"I'm Ren," he said slowly, testing the weight of the situation. "And don't call me Master. Just... Ren. Or brother, I guess."
"Ren-ni!" Erna cheered, lunging forward to wrap his arms around Ren's neck in a bone-crushing hug.
[System Alert]
[Summon 'Erna' has successfully bonded.]
[Relationship Status: Family (Brotherly Bond)]
[Note: A Devourer's loyalty is absolute, but their appetite is infinite.]
Ren felt a strange warmth in his chest that had nothing to do with mana. For years, he had been the "freeloader," the "dead weight," the boy who survived by being invisible. Now, he had a brother. A very loud, very energetic brother who was currently trying to use Ren's hair as a chew toy.
"Erna, stop. That's my head," Ren sighed, gently pushing the boy back.
Erna pouted, his ears drooping pathetically. "But I'm hungry, Ren-ni. My tummy feels like it has a hole in it. A big, dark hole."
Ren's stomach gave a sympathetic growl. He hadn't eaten since before the crafting marathon. He opened his Inventory, intending to pull out some of the dried meat he kept for emergencies. But as his eyes swept over his stored items, he remembered the description of the Primordial Devourer.
'They grow by consuming mana cores and stats...'
Ren looked at the "Miscellaneous" tab of his inventory. Over the months of surviving in the forest and clearing the lower floors of the village dungeons, he had hoarded a massive amount of materials he never had the heart to sell.
He reached in and pulled out a jagged chunk of Level B Iron Ore.
Erna's eyes didn't just light up; they glowed. He snatched the ore out of Ren's hand before Ren could even blink.
CRUNCH.
Ren winced. The sound was like a heavy-duty industrial crusher meeting a solid rock. Erna didn't chew; he demolished. In three seconds, the Level B ore—material that could have been forged into a high-grade sword—was gone.
"More!" Erna demanded, his tail wagging so hard it knocked a glass off the nightstand.
Ren hesitated, then sighed. He began dumping his entire hoard onto the hostel floor.
Ten chunks of Refined Copper.
Five slabs of Dark-Steel Ore.
A handful of Cracked Mana Stones he'd found in the goblin nest.
Even the Mystery Ores he'd bought at the village black market for a few hundred yen.
It was a mountain of metal and magic. To a blacksmith, it was a fortune. To Erna, it was a snack bowl.
Crunch. Munch. Gulp. Snap.
The room filled with the terrifying sound of a child grinding down a mineral hoard. Erna moved with a blur of silver hair, his small hands grabbing ores and stuffing them into a mouth that seemed to expand to accommodate them. He looked like a squirrel in a nut factory, his cheeks bulging as he ground down Level B materials like they were soft biscuits.
Ren watched in stunned silence. He had worked so hard to gather those materials. He had fought trolls and avoided traps for those ores. And now, they were disappearing into the stomach of an eight-year-old.
After five minutes, the floor was clean. Not even a speck of dust remained. Erna let out a long, satisfied burp that released a small puff of silver mana. He patted his stomach and looked at Ren with a sleepy grin.
"That was okay," Erna said. "A little dry. Do you have any juice? The red kind that comes from big cows?"
Ren ignored the request for blood and quickly pulled up Erna's status screen.
[Summon: Erna]
[Hunger Level: 27%]
[Status: Slightly Less Starving]
Ren felt a cold sweat break out on his forehead. He looked at his empty inventory slots where the ores used to be. He looked at his current balance: 4,000 Yen.
'I just fed him enough metal to build a small tank... and he's only at twenty-seven percent?'
Ren did the math. To get Erna to 100%, he would need four times the amount of ore he just gave him. In the capital's market, that would cost tens of thousands of yen. Every. Single. Day.
"Ren-ni? Why is your face turning white?" Erna asked, tilting his head. "Are you broken? I can lick you! Licking fixes things!"
"No licking," Ren said, his voice trembling slightly. "I'm just... calculating the cost of our existence."
He realized then that the "Solo Glitch" wasn't just a cheat code; it was a necessity. He didn't just need money for his own stats anymore. He needed to be a multi-millionaire just to keep his brother from eating the academy's foundation.
Ren sat back on the bed, rubbing his temples. He needed more information. He opened the System's deep-search function, focusing on Erna's evolution path. He spent an hour scrolling through corrupted text and locked files until he found a small, hidden entry.
[Evolution Note: Primordial Devourer]
[Current Stage: Juvenile (Form 1)]
[Next Stage: Humanoid Mimicry (Form 2)]
[Requirement: Reach Level 2.]
[Effect of Form 2:]
The summon can suppress its primordial aura to appear as a standard human child. Fangs will retract, and the tail will vanish into the shadow. Note: Wolf ears will remain visible due to 'Primordial Stubbornness'.
Ren's eyes sharpened. A human form.
Right now, Erna was a walking disaster. If a guard walked in, they'd see the ears and the tail and call for an executioner. But if he could reach Level 2, Erna could pass as a human—mostly. He could just wear a hat to hide the ears. He could walk beside Ren in the city. He could be a real brother.
Ren looked at Erna, who was currently trying to see if he could fit his entire foot in his mouth.
"Erna," Ren said, his voice firm.
The boy stopped his gymnastics and looked up. "Yes, Ren-ni?"
"We're going to train. Hard."
Erna's ears perked up. "Train? Is that like a game? Do I get to eat the losers?"
"We'll see," Ren said, a small, determined smile touching his lips. "But if you want to go outside and see the 'shiny' things in the city, you have to level up. You have to learn to look like me."
"Like Ren-ni?" Erna scrambled onto the bed, his silver eyes wide with wonder. "I want to be like Ren-ni! Ren-ni is cool! He has a big knife and smells like snacks!"
Ren reached out and ruffled the boy's messy hair, carefully avoiding the twitching ears. "Then it's a deal. I'll provide the food, and you provide the muscle. We're going to win that festival, Erna. All of it."
"Yeah! Win! Eat! Win!" Erna cheered, jumping up and down on the mattress.
Ren leaned back, watching the chaotic silver blur of his new brother. He was broke, he was being watched by a corrupt official, and he had a primordial monster living in his shadow.
But for the first time since the floor of his classroom vanished, Ren didn't feel like he was playing on the hardest difficulty alone.
He had a goal. He had a brother. And he had 4,000 Yen.
'I need to get back to the Guild stall,' Ren thought, his mind already spinning with ways to exploit the capital's economy. 'I need to buy the world, one stat point at a time.'
Just as he was about to lie back down for a few more minutes of rest, the communication crystal on the desk flared with a harsh, insistent red light.
Ren's heart sank. He knew that frequency.
He tapped the crystal, and the holographic image of Lord Zilton appeared. The man looked disheveled, his expensive silk shirt wrinkled and his face a bright, angry red.
"Ren!" Zilton barked. "I don't care if you're a 'Hero' or a 'Dragon Slayer.' My office has just received a report of a massive mana spike in your quarters! And someone... or something... has stolen my personal enchanted handkerchief during our meeting!"
Ren looked at Erna. The boy was currently sitting in the corner, happily blowing his nose into a very expensive-looking purple silk cloth with Zilton's family crest on it.
Erna looked at Ren and winked.
Ren turned back to the projection, his face a mask of perfect, innocent confusion. "A mana spike, Lord Zilton? I told you, I was testing my skills. As for your handkerchief... perhaps you dropped it in your haste to leave?"
Zilton let out a strangled sound of fury. "I will be there in ten minutes with a detection squad! If I find a single hair of a monster in that room, I'll have you in the dungeon!"
The projection cut out.
Ren looked at the ruined floor, the silver-haired boy, and the stolen handkerchief.
"Erna," Ren said quietly.
"Yes, Ren-ni?"
"Eat the handkerchief. Quickly."
"Yay! Dessert!"
The game of shadows had officially begun.