Prologue: What It Means to Cross Paths

It was a dazzlingly clear day, yet deep in the woods, the forest canopy was so thick that only the rare crack of sunlight managed to peek through. There, my lady trudged through the undergrowth using her staff—a family heirloom—to push the dense foliage out of the way or, at times, to all-out bushwhack.

“With this much vegetation, I doubt that it’s struggling to find food. There are plenty of burrows too. I imagine that it has managed to grow quite large without needing to worry about any natural predators,” she said.

“Hmm... I suppose we can’t be too hopeful, then...” I replied.

This deep region of the forest was untouched by people. However, while there was no semblance of any man-made path, there was an animal trail through the trees: a huge, long indentation that looked as if it were made by a giant snake. While its winding course made the journey easier than expected, what lay at said course’s end was something far more dangerous.

This trail had actually been formed by a hydra, the very monster that we were looking for. Hydras were a type of two-headed lesser wyrm. In layman’s terms, they were akin to gigantic snakes. Based on the information at the guild, there was a single hydra lurking in this area. It was five meters tall, far outclassing the average hydra (and who knew how long the thing was). Given the venom and deadly fire that they could expel from their two heads, hydras were tenacious creatures that not even a strong four-member adventurer party could defeat; they’d be left wit