A girl trudges across the green-covered large forest. The only warmth she has, affroded by her torn dirty rags. The cold wind of the night blows in her face, and she shivers as she continues moving.

A nasty wound could be seen on her back, as her bruised legs kept going.

Her blood-coated figure stumbles as she fell on the earth, rising up before continuing her march.

Her body skinnier than it was days before, hunger making itself known to her long ago.

Her face looked pale, as exhaustion was seeping into her bones.

'So... tired...'

She felt her eyes getting heavier, the need for sleep and relax slowly consuming her, her body almost screaming at her to stop moving as she tried to ignore it.

But it was useless.

She fell once more, and this time, she couldn't find the power to move.

She hated this, this weakness, this threat to her.

She wants to move, to survive.

Yet.

Yet!

Bitterness welled into her.

It wasn't fair.

It wasn't fair that she will be dying, just like this.

She hated this.

She doesn't want to die.

'Power.'

She thought.

If only she had power, power to survive. To fight. To move!

So she will never feel this despair ony more!

A sensation came from her heart and body.

Something started happening.

Light came to existence, covering her body, as warmth engulfed her.

Her injured legs started to heal, her eyes no longer felt heavy as she blinked at what just happened, but she shrugged it quickly.

Now isn't time to ponder about what happened, and what kind of power she has, she needs to escape this forest, and more urgently...

She licked her dry lips as her stomach once growled more.

She needs something to eat and drink.

And as she looked around her, she knew exactly what she needs to do.

There are too many creatures living here surrounding her, after all, waiting for her to die.

Why not give them a greeting then.

Pushing her hand forward, she forced herself to remember the horrors she had experienced the previous day, allowing her rage to grow inside of her.

And waves of winds and flames came to be targetting many of the creatures around.

Predators, preys, it didn't matter, anything that didn't escape ended up being sliced and burned to death.

And when the flames and winds no longer roared, all what was left were burned corpses with different degrees of edibility.

The girl didn't care, only feeling a level of euphoria she couldn't comprehend as a glow from the monsters entered her body, as she felt herself full of energy, still not fully understanding what happened, and allowed her insticts to move her, biting the flesh of her victims and swallowing it.

If she felt pain from eating monster meat, she can always try recalling the sensation of pain she felt before she was magically healed, maybe that will heal her once more, her mind reasoned.

For now, it's time to fill her stomach.

---

"GIEEEE!"

A giant arachne monster screamed before it's body lost life and fell on the ground, leaving behind a mass of light that went towards a dark-skinned white-haired girl as her body glowed, absorbing the power.

Layla sighed as her mana reserves expanded, looking at the latest corpse she had made.

Days after the whole marriage arrangement with Zain, she deemed it alright to go back into the dungeon-raiding work she started before, finishing the first dungeon yesterday.

It was admittedly underwhelming to finish it, even without using time magic, as even the "boss" was easily killed.

Said boss being a "goblin king" with few goblin mages for support.

Definitely, it was stronger than all the other monsters in that low dungeon, something between 40~60 times stronger, and it had given her a nice mana boost, but it sadly couldn't catch up to her using body augmentation to the fullest and Layla used the chance to Donut it to death, twice, once wher it's heart was, the second where his head was.

At least it increased her mana by a one or two percent of her total, so it wasn't that bad.

Tonight, Layla decided that she will pick one of the higher dungeons, which is why she was currently battling a horde of large spiders, with the occasional arachne alongside them.

The spiders were looking just like how real spiders do, but way larger, as each one was at least as large as a five-years old kid, and up to the size of an adult, with eight eyes on their heads and a lot of teeth in their mouths.

It was realy good that Layla was absolutely sure she had the power to kill them while being able to escape if things got ugly, otherwise it would have been very bad.

The spiders had hard bodies, almost harder than the goblin king's body, she concluded after she killed few of them, and they can also make webs like spiderman, from their legs, mouths and their backs.

The arachnes meanwhile were the equivalent of a "rare mutation/evolution" to the spider monsters, as they were twice as large as an adult human, and they had the upper half of a human, including a torso and two arms, with the only difference being their face having multiple eyes instead of just two.

Their human bodies were also quite appealing from the "generic/ecchi isekai" viewpoint; the males had abs and muscled human bodies while the females had the"big breast and thin body" package on them.

Little did that matter when most of them screeched at her as they shot webs to immobilize her, and Layla chose the chance to test one of her original affinities to train with.

Death.

The element allows one to make a corrosive energy to drain or eliminate the life force of targets.

Another arachne shot webs towards her, as she easily avoided them, running towards the monster as she evaded the other spiders.

She jumped towards the arachne and extended her arm, as a red aura came to existence, rapidly expanding and seemingly swallowing the monsters around her and engulfing them.

The monsters screeched as their bodies looked as if they lost all their blood and nutritients, their life energies being consumed by the white-haired girl.

As they finally died, parts of their mana going towards the girl, Layla condensed the red energy full of life force into a small orb and ate it, refilling her stamia and healing whatever small injuries she had gotten, making her feel energized.

Moving to the next floor, she saw nothing at the beginning but her senses told her that there are monsters dozen meters away as she walked forward.

'The monsters in this dungeon are quite interesting.'

So far, this dungeon had harpies, foxes, mermaids, lamias and large spiders, almost all of them dying when she fought them.

She was wondering what kind of monster will be the boss of this dungeon; will it be a different monster, or a stronger version of the ones she fought? Or maybe she will fight a chimera-like monster with the physical characteristics of the other monsters combined?

As she kept killing the monsters that stood in her way, she reached the last floor, entering it.

And then she saw the enemy.

In the large area, stood a single large creature.

A giant monster that was clearly waking up, standing as it gave her the chance to see it's full form.

A large body covered in red scales, with a long spiked tail.

The arms and legs were also covered in scales, with red claws as fingers.

The tall neck of the creature separated into three parts, each part supporting a head that resembled a snake's face, ending with a creature that looked like one of the "legendary" creatures Layla read about.

"A Pyrohydra, huh."

She looked at the creature as it opened it's eyes directly looking at her, allowing her to see the red pupils and slitted black irises.

Pyrohydra, a creature that was said to be a weaker version of a dragon.

In the legends she read about, it was stated that a pyrohydra was easily able to destroy a whole country, and that it required a whole kingdom to kill the foul creature.

It was stated that other than having very high endurance and physical power, the creature was also able to use all of the six "generic" elements, along with being almost invulnerable against any Fire-elemental attacks.

'My mana sense states it has twice my mana.'

Layla picked one of the many knives she brought as the monster simply looked at her growling.

'I could easily kill it by stopping time and using space magic to slice it in half, but let's see how far I can go without that.'

With that, she augmented herself and ran towards the monster that had no problem following her, as one of the heads opened it's maw, a black energy concentrating in it before a beam of darkness sped up at her, while another head suddenly elongated it's neck, moving towards her.

Layla jumped above the beam, using the knife to move higher using the second head like a spring, and a hot flame moved towards her thanks to the third head.

Raising her hand, she created a wave of water that stopped the flame, while using the pressure of her spell to move backward, and avoiding a bite from the maw of the second head.

She easily reached the ground, five meters away from the beast as it growled at her, no doubt angry at her survival.

Once more, she ran towards it, avoiding a wave of water and few wind slashes and countering another flame torrent with a water spell, but this time she punched the head directly attacking her using her mana-infused knife against the head's forehead.

The knife barely scratched the skin before it rebounded, stopping the head's momentum for a , and Layla used the chance to get away, avoiding a beam of light that attacked where she was a second ago.

"So hard!"

Layla stated before she fell on ground, the pyrohydra moving towards her.

For a few more tries, the process would repeat itself, she and the beast get too close, she evades a few elemental magic spells while she either gets back or tries to attack with varying levels of physical strength before retreating.

As her legs met the ground once more, this time she once more ran towards the creature, running to the left, avoiding a blast of water, as one of the heads extended, opening it's maw.

But instead of retreating, she quickly held her hand, charging it with the space attribute, and slashing as she grinned.

The head ended up being sliced in two, green liquid exploding from the pyrohydra's body...

And Layla finds her body thrown in the air, slamming through the wall with enough force to make a crater.

She couldn't feel anything for a second, before it registered.

And she screamed as her right arm instictively clutched her left side as where her left arm was, there was none.

Blood spilled as she tried to comprehend what happened through the pain.

'What just happened!? I didn't let down my guard, nor did I feel the hydra using anything to buff it's power, so how!?'

As she gritted her teeth, her arms glowed green as she used her Life ability, directly converting her mana into pure life force and healing her arm and it slowly regenerated, as her blood stopped leaking.

The beast was not any better as it roared from pain and rage due to the loss of one of it's heads, as it slowly looked towards her, rage clear as the two surviving heads opened their maws.

But Layla had already decided to finish this right away.

Time stopped just a fraction of a second before the attacks of the two heads, a mix of flame and wind beams, were about to hit her.

She gasped for air as she quickly moved towards the beast, her arm still not fully healed, before using her safe arm to use space magic, to slice the two heads, and she sliced the body in four pieces, vertically and horizontally just in case, before leaping way behind it as time resumed.

The pyrohydra's body exploded with gore as the green liquid, it's blood, gushed outside, and the body parts dropped on the floor, twitching for a second before ceasing to move.

Layla kept her attention on the corpse for a few more seconds before fell on one knee when she saw the beast's mana condensing and moving towards her body, releasing a breath she didn't realise she was holding.

"Damn!"

She yelled as she looked at her arm, almost fully healed with only a couple of fingers still growing, the rest of the bones and meat in her arm already regenerated and repaired.

She shuddered as her mana expanded once more, and this time she felt her reseves growing by almost fifty percent.

"So I got lucky and absorbed a quarter of that monster's mana, huh?"

She sighed with relief as she felt herself invigorated as her mana pool was almost filled to the brim.

"But still, how did it become so fast without me noticing? I knew it would be enraged by losing a head, but to suddenly grow so strong and fast? It's as if..."

As if...

Layla's eyes widened, recalling something similar her past self dealt with in one of those RPG video games.

When the player characters reached an area on the game and fought a three-headed hydra, killing one head-

"Will make the other heads stronger..."

She stood there stupefied for a second.

"Of course, there cannot be any other explanation."

She looked at the corpse in realisation, as she now understood just why the pyrohydra was stated to be so dangerous.

The legend stated that a single pyrohydra required the effort of a whole kingdom to defeat, but it didn't tell how powerful said kingdom was, nor the charecteristics of the beast aside than the general knowledge people have at this day.

But if the pyrohydra grows stronger with every destroyed head, then it makes sense.

So the kingdom that killed the creature had at first managed to destroy only a head, and causing the beast to grow stronger and faster. The fighters in that era most likely did not know the monster grew stronger that way, and with the pyrohydra being able to heal using light magic, no wonder it almost destroyed a whole kingdom.

Layla stood up, moving her arm and after making sure there was no problem, she walked, exiting the dungeon planning to take the next few hours to sleep.

Good thing that today is sunday so she can laze around more than usual.

---

The next few months, Layla took her time to explore other dungeons, not the high-leveled ones, but those with difficulties between her first and second ones.

She didn't fight any pyrohydra as a final boss, instead she dealt with giant slimes, large sekeletons and lizards, along with few arachnes in the last boss room.

She went too high regarding her choice of a second dungeon, she pondered after finishing the last dungeon.

Myrna also returned and started training her more in magic, Zain seemed to have fun breaking stuff with water magic, and Anna visited from time to time, or they visited her.

Layla felt that there was not a day she really did nothing.

But today is a new day and-

"Wait, my birthday had come already?"

Wow, it had been almost year already.

"Yes, Layla-sama, now please wear this dress."

Layla picked the fancy dress in suspicion.

She has plenty of fancy dresses but this one seemed to be even more so, and she felt she will be doing something she does't really enjoy.

She looked at the maid who smiled back nerveously.

"You know I am not interested in going to any noble party event, right?"

"...Unfortunately Layla-sama, your parents were adamant."

Layla looked, almost glaring for few seconds at the maid before she sighed, and went to wear the dress.

And then the dress exploded.

... Not. But that might have been more entertaining to the white-haired girl.

"If I ever get the throne, I will ban royal parties."

With that, she wore the dress preparing for wasting her time for a pointless party.

She isn't even of age to care that much. Shouldn't she be required to actually deal with these parties when she becomes fourteen or something when she is legally an adult in this world?

'Damn politics.'

With a last look at the mirror, she nodded and left with the maid.

She will go to a dungeon to vent her annoyance later.

The only question is what kind of dungeon she should go for.

A mid-tier or a high-tier one?

Decisions, decisions.

Life is never easy, isn't it?

---

Somewhere in the kingdom, an area was buzzing with life.

People moving, coming and leaving.

Shops were open, the sellers recommending their products, as curious customers bought and haggled for prices.

The place was thriving as bussines were conducted.

A small unassuming figure, their face hidden with a hood as they moved carefully, blending in the surrounding crowd that was mostly consisted from adults.

They looked at their targets, always moving, never staying in one place for more than a few seconds.

As they saw a chance, with no one paying attention for a split second, they vanished.

Their target was quickly captured in their hands, as they disappeared without anyone realizing their presence until it was too late.

As the figure reappeared once more with a practiced ease on one of the many roofs they had tested, they say and looked at their kidnapped target.

The delicious fruits to sustain them for today.

Water, barely flowing from their hands, covered the fruits, cleaning them before disappearing, as the figure ate carefully.

If the place they sat on was not tested many times before to make sure no one would see them and if someone could see beyond the walls and roofs,
they would have seen a set of blue eyes and blond hair.