Very small regional Yajilin

Question

_{This puzzle is part of the Monthly Topic Challenge #14: Think inside the (very small) box!.}

---

Rules of regional Yajilin:

• Shade some cells in the grid. Two shaded cells cannot share an edge, but can touch at a corner.
• Draw a single loop, going horizontally and vertically through centres of cells, which visits every unshaded cell and none of the shaded cells. The loop cannot cross itself or branch out.
• A number in the top-left corner of a cage marked with dotted lines indicates how many shaded cells are inside the cage.

Solve on Penpa+

Answer 1

The only way to get a loop into and out of the 3-cage without its getting stuck is by darkening those three squares. Once that's done, the only way to get a loop into and out of the 2-cage without its getting stuck is by darkening those two squares.

Answer 2

The completed grid:

The solve path:

First, look at the 3-cage:

Note that diagonally adjacent shaded cells would always leave a dead-end cell in row 5. So the shaded cells must be in columns 1, 3 and 5.

Then the shaded cells in columns 1 and 5 must be in row 5 to avoid dead-end cells in row 5.

And then the shaded cell in column 3 must be in row 4 to avoid more dead-end cells in row 5.
And that forces all the shaded cells in the 3-cage.

Now for the 2-cage:

Similarly to the above, we cannot have diagonally adjacent shaded cells in rows 1 and 2.

So there must be a shaded cell in row 3, which can only be in column 2.

The other shaded cell must be in row 1, and it cannot be in column 2 (dead-end cell in R1C1), so must be R1C3.

That gives us all the shaded cells in the cages.
From there the loop path is forced.