The Greatest Celestial Summoner

"Grahh!" a baby's voice echoed as they giggled.

"Waaaoe! Co! Co!" They continued.

It had been two months since he arrived in this bizarre world. Ain wouldn't say born since, as far as he could tell, all signs pointed to him being a little older than two months. Most notably, the fact that when he had awoken to his Mother abandoning him, he was already fully clothed.

That, and there was no discomfort of being inside of somebody else. He didn't know from experience, but he imagined that childbirth was not a pleasant experience for the mother or the child.

Regardless, Ain found himself quietly watching the source of these sounds: a young caramel-skinned baby playing with something. Someone?

His view was disrupted by the crib he was in as he was too short to see over it, forced to look through the bars of his prison.

A large mass of metal armor played simple games with the child. They played peekaboo and even presented the young ones with their toys while pretending they were real.

As cute of a display as it was, Ain wasn't particularly interested in the child. Instead, he cared far more about the thing playing with her.

Core, as the old lady who took them in called it.

It appeared to be a set of cursed armor, but it only had a plate breastplate and helmet, with nothing looking remotely like legs. Its lower half was a small twister of wind that allowed it to hover and move around.

Ain couldn't figure out how it managed to have such fine control over its movement when the wind never changed velocity or direction. Not to mention that it was another creature he had never seen before.

Even more interesting still, this wasn't a creature that Ain knew of. To an extent, that should be expected, but the creature didn't have any signs of life.

He couldn't sense anything like an artificial heart that'd make a golem move, a curse of binding that'd tie an undead to the mortal realm with a seal of some kind. It was made of wind, yet it didn't have any catalyst like an elemental spirit would have to channel mana either.

It was simply… The wind that was strong enough to carry around heavy plate mail.

'Damn it! If only I had a proper amount of Mana! Please, O' great Core! Teach me how you work!'

"Gwawawa!" He tried to vocalize his thoughts. Unsurprisingly, nothing came out."

All beings had Mana, regardless of whether they cultivated it or not. Among the many types of mystical energies that existed in the greater universes, Mana, one of the two energies that made up all life, was by far the most common.

Naturally, everyone had different ways of using it. For Ain, in particular, it was a core part of his Celestial Energy.

Unfortunately, the amount he had was minuscule.

If there were a needle amongst a haystack, his Mana would be an individual strand of hay.

His attempt at speaking grabbed Core's attention as the floating armor turned toward Ain.

They placed a rattle and toy truck in the girl's crib before moving over toward Ain. The cribs were close enough to each other, divided only by a small drawer used to store their clothes and toys.

Core used the same techniques on Ain as they did with the girl. Naturally, as an old man who explored and discovered the farthest reaches of the cosmos, Ain was enamored…

Obviously…

The fine motor control, the seemingly old yet unrusted metal gauntlets, moved with great precision as they went to pick Ain up.

"I'm sorry child… Did I neglect you?" Core spoke.

Their voice sounded like a chronic smoker in their mid to late 40s talking through a fan. It was grating, but as was everything with this creature, it was fascinating to Ain.

'It's not telepathy. Is it manipulating the vibrations in the air to mimic a voice? If that's the case does it choose to sound like that, or is its control not acute enough to change it freely?' 

"Cwoy! Waah!" Ain tried to speak again.

If he tried his best, he could form simple words with only one syllable, but Rs were still difficult.

Whatever the case, Ain locked eyes with Core. Or at least, his eyes met with Core's empty eye sockets in their helmet.

Ain's eyes lit up as he giggled… Which made him quite embarrassed. He still didn't quite understand it, but his body seemed to react easily to his emotions without him controlling them.

The involuntary muscle movement was very troublesome.

After a while, Ain was put down, and Core turned his attention back to the girl.

'Why don't they just let us play outside of these confines? If they're going to watch us anyway, then it's not like those boxes will fall on us.' Ain hummed as he glanced around.

The room was spacious, with a high ceiling and large windows partially covered by blinds. The blinds allowed light to pass through, but they also provided privacy.

The walls were roughly painted over in pastel hues, a gradient from light blue to a peachy color in an attempt to evoke a perpetual sunrise. Parts of the walls were still or had white visible as the paint job had yet to be finished.

One of the corners of the room, where the kids were, was full of their sleeping utensils. Quilts, pillows, and even some stuffed animals in both cribs!

The center of the room had a massive playmat. It had a sizeable, colorful town with carriages going to and from buildings and waterwheels assisting with the common people's workload on an even bigger island.

On the other side of the room were the aforementioned boxes. Ain didn't know what they were full of, just that this room was most likely used as a storage of some kind before that old lady took the two kids in.

Overall, Ain thought it wasn't a bad room. Although an amateur clearly placed the decorations, but that wasn't his area of expertise anyway, so he couldn't nitpick.

"Core! Could you come here for a moment? I need some help!" An old lady shouted from another room.

Core paused and turned to the door. Before they left, they made sure to put more toys into the cribs to keep the children entertained.

"Stay put. Ain, Annalise." They said with an unnatural pause in between their words.