I AM A FROG

I am a frog monster known as an Elroe Frog.

So far, I have no name.

After all, monsters with names are widely known and feared as “named monsters.”

I do not know if I shall ever become such a splendid being, but at present, I am simply a humble, nameless frog.

Elroe Frogs are one of the endemic species that inhabit this Great Elroe Labyrinth.

As such, we are quite rare.

That alone ought to show you how valuable I am.

Forgive me—perhaps that was too bold.

And yet I did not tell a lie.

Out of all the species that inhabit the Great Elroe Labyrinth, while the Elroe Frog may not be the weakest, we are most certainly close to the bottom.

Worse yet, because our skin glistens in all the colors of the rainbow, it can be used to create ornamental items.

Weak yet made of valuable materials.

You may have guessed where this is going.

Yes, we Elroe Frogs make highly attractive prey for adventurers to hunt.

And adventurers are not our only adversary.

There are many dangerous assailants among the other monsters that threaten our lives.

For indeed, we are weak.

Only a few chosen frogs can survive long in the Great Elroe Labyrinth, where strong monsters run rampant.

It is only thanks to our rapid rate of reproduction and our indiscriminately omnivorous eating habits (for we consume anything, even rocks) that we have managed not to go extinct.

However, in recent times, I have noticed an acceleration in the rate of the disappearance of my brethren around me.

Considering our weakness, it is inevitable that our numbers should ever dwindle, yet the nature of this is quite unusual.

I must investigate the cause immediately.

Hmm? How strange.

My body cannot move all of a sudden.

What in the world has happened?

Good heavens! Could this be one of the very spider webs I have heard rumors about?

Dear me, if I am trapped here much longer, I shall be devoured by the web’s creator.

Yet, struggle as I might, my body cannot free itself, and I sense something approaching close behind.

It seems that my life is already at its end.

Even as I turn to look, I see a single spider in the very act of sinking its fangs into my body.

…So yeah, wouldn’t it be hilarious if a frog was thinking something like that?

Ugh, they still taste gross, though.

THE WORLD-APPROVED THREAD

You know, something’s been bothering me lately.

Namely, the Appraisal results of my threads.

As the level of my Appraisal skill goes up, its explanations have gradually gotten longer.

In other words, each time it levels up, I get a more detailed description than before.

Before I entered the Middle Stratum, I honestly didn’t have any time to waste wondering about nonsense like that, and while I was in the Middle Stratum, I couldn’t produce thread at all to test it out.

But I was planning on Appraising my thread again once I got back to the Upper Stratum.

What wonderful description will it give for my thread now that Appraisal has evolved into Professor Wisdom?

I’m so curious!

And so, now that I’m back in the Upper Stratum, I can finally start my Thread Appraisal Party!

First, the default thread without any modifications.

Lemme see those results, Professor Wisdom!

Oooh, intriguing.

None of this information is really news to me, but I’ve never seen that quality thing at the end before.

“A” must mean it’s really good, right?

Sure enough, when I try deliberately producing thread of slightly lesser quality, it gets “Quality B.”

Since my thread skill level is far from maxed out, I can’t imagine A is the best rank. Still, that must mean it’s pretty good already, don’t you think?

Next, we’ll try some customized thread.

This is the kind I normally use, with the stickiness and durability cranked up to the max.

It added a little bit more text to the explanation, although the quality didn’t change.

Next, I guess I’ll try adding the Cutting attribute.

Hmm? Now it’s got attack power?

In gaming terms, it’s almost like it’s turned into a piece of equipment or something. Is that what’s going on here?

So my thread is equipment, huh…?

Well, sure, I guess you could say it’s a weapon.

My main weapon, in fact.

I try adding the Impact and Shock attributes, too, and get more or less the same results.

Next, I go with adding resistances, which basically just tack on a little “high resistance to XYZ” bit to the default explanation.

The one big change was that when I add Fire Resistance, the “blah blah blah weak to fire” part changes to something like “It has moderate resistance to fire, so it would be difficult to burn it with a weak flame.”

So even with the resistance, you can still burn it up.

Man, what a bummer.

But anyway, next I’ll try getting rid of the stickiness.

Since that’s the biggest trait of spider thread, it’d basically just be normal thread at that point. So what will the Appraisal results say?

Oh, and I should improve the feel of the material, too.

Whoa, the explanation changed a whole bunch!

It doesn’t even follow the format of the default thread explanation anymore!

I mean, yeah, I figured making spider thread that’s not sticky would turn it into a whole other thing, but whoa.

Everything I’ve tried so far has just been the same basic explanation with a few words added here or there.

And now we get this huge change?

Wow, though. I guess thread without stickiness is a super-good material, huh?

It got a rave review in its Appraisal.

Wondering what the heck “magic power conduction” even means, I do a double Appraisal, and it basically means whether it’s easy or hard to imbue power from magic and skills into the material.

And with spider thread, it’s apparently really easy.

I guess that makes sense since you can customize the thread in the first place.

Maybe it holds up better to different treatments and stuff.

If you used it to make some kinda cloth armor, I bet it’d come out awesome.

Not that I have any plans to put clothes on this spider body of mine at this point.

Clothes would just make it harder to move, and most of all, it’d probably be next to impossible to get clothes off without ripping them.

Spider bodies have a much more complicated structure than human bodies, okay!

We can’t just pop an outfit on or off whenever we want!

I’ve got eight legs, for crying out loud!

Whew. Well, anyway, forget the part about clothes.

Basically, this is just proof that, from the perspective of the world at large, my thread is awesome.

Professor Wisdom said it, so it must be true.