THREADS AND ADVENTURERS

One day, a group of adventurers burned some taratect webs.

Then they cautiously ventured into the space where the webs had been.

“What the hell’s this?”

“White…balls? Is this thread?”

Before their eyes were countless white balls, scattered all over the ground.

On closer inspection, they appeared to be balls of fine thread.

While it is common knowledge among adventurers that the spider monsters known as taratects occasionally make nests out of webs, they had never heard any stories of balls of thread being found inside those nests.

The man who acted as their leader cautiously prodded one of the balls with his scabbard.

He assumed that if it was made of spider thread, the ball would have the same stickiness.

And yet it only felt soft and light under his scabbard, almost as if he were touching a ball of the highest quality cotton.

Not that a common adventurer like this man had ever touched high-quality cotton before.

Gingerly, the leader picked up one of the balls of thread.

It felt silky smooth, like the hair of a gorgeous woman.

Not that this unpopular man had much experience touching the hair of a woman, either, beautiful or otherwise.

It felt so pleasant to the touch that he found himself stroking it in a trance, forgetting that he was in the middle of a dangerous labyrinth.

Seeing this, one of the other members of the group was unable to resist diving into one of the piles of thread balls.

The gentle sensation cushioned his landing and enveloped his entire body.

It was like he was lying on a bed of clouds.

Not that he had ever slept on a bed of clouds, and such a thing would be physically impossible anyway, so that part was just a wild fantasy.

Giving in to their urges, the rest of the group dove into the piles as well.

For a while, they simply savored the blissful comfort. Then they collected all the balls of thread, as well as an object that appeared to be a wyrm egg, and brought it all back with them.

Wyrm eggs were incredibly rare and could be sold for a considerable fortune. But to these adventurers, it was nothing but an afterthought.

Evidently, a certain young wyrm was heard to indignantly exclaim, “That’s ridiculous!” when she heard as much many years later.

At any rate, thanks to this party of adventurers, the balls of thread were unleashed into the world.

The truth was, they had no intention of parting with the balls of thread at all.

That was how enthralled they were by the softness.

The merchant who managed to purchase them was exceedingly skilled at negotiation and had powerful foresight.

In addition to currency, he made a deal to use some of the balls of thread to create sleeping bags for each of the adventurers.

Thus, those lucky adventurers acquired a vast fortune as well as a very comfortable night’s sleep indeed.

FROGS

The first monster that I ever defeated in this labyrinth was a frog.

Since then, I’ve run into them countless times.

They’re pretty weak monsters by this labyrinth’s standards, but there sure are a lot of ’em.

Also, even though they’re really weak, they’re still a great deal stronger than I was early on.

Nope, doesn’t mean frogs are strong, just that Small Lesser Taratects are insanely weak.

Frogs are still weaker than most other monsters for sure.

But it’s not like they attack in groups, either.

They don’t survive with sheer numbers, like those centipedes that are always in a huge swarm or those buddy-buddy lizards that always move in groups of three.

They’re distributed all over the labyrinth, and every one of them does whatever they damn well please.

Although the Upper Stratum was lousy with frogs, I found ’em in the Lower and Middle Stratums, too.

The ones in the Lower Stratum have poison, so even though they’re weak, bigger monsters give ’em a pass.

There weren’t as many as in the Upper Stratum, but yeah, I still saw ’em around often enough.

I’m guessing the reason there were fewer down there is ’cause even with the poison, it doesn’t mean every monster is gonna let ’em live all the time.

My bet is that in the Lower Stratum, they don’t go out of their way to eat the frogs, but they’ll do it if they’re starving and no other food source is available.

And in the Middle Stratum, they evolved to adapt to their surroundings.

The Middle Stratum is this lovely magma-filled, red-hot lava zone.

And guess who was swimming around in the magma without a care in the world, with the ridiculously advanced skill Flame Nullification?

Yep, some goddamn frogs.

I mean, sure, there were other species from the Upper Stratum that had evolved and adapted to live in the Middle Stratum, too, so it’s not like the frogs were a special case.

But still, when I see a stupid frog with Flame Nullification—a skill I don’t even have, mind you—I can’t help but feel weirdly defeated, like they’ve beaten me to it or something.

I had plenty of life-or-death battles with frogs in the Upper Stratum, to the point where I kinda started thinking of them like my rivals.

Nowadays, I can slaughter ’em without breaking a sweat… And yet here they are with a skill I’m dying to get my hands on.

What’s up with this depressing feeling, huh?

But still, despite being total weaklings, these frogs have some tricks up their slimy little sleeves to help ’em squeak by.

In the labyrinth, it’s survival of the fittest.

If you’re weak, you’ll get killed and eaten by a strong monster in no time flat.

The poisonous ones in the Lower Stratum get overlooked to an extent, but they have another method of survival, too.

The main reason these weak frogs manage to multiply and survive all over the Upper Stratum is this: They’re omnivores.

They’ll eat literally anything, even inorganic matter.

They’ll even eat the labyrinth itself.

They have a skill called Acid Attack, which they’ve apparently used to develop miraculous powers of digestion.

They’ll eat whatever they can find lying around, up to and including whole boulders.

Does a rock really have any nutritional value? Yeah, I wondered the same thing at first. But if you start worrying about details like that, there’ll be no end to it, so you just gotta ignore that thought.

Since I’ve seen ’em eating boulders, they must provide some nutrients. Probably.

However, it seems like they’re not the frogs’ favorite dish since they’ll only eat rocks if they’re starving and there’s literally nothing else.

Still, that means they’ll never go hungry. Unlike me, who can only eat other monsters.

There’s boulders and rocks and stuff lying around all over the place, but they could even just chip a piece off the damn wall.

Which means that even if their population balloons way out of proportion, starving will never be a concern.

In other words, they can keep on reproducing without ever having to compete for food.

So they basically just keep multiplying, making sure that as many frogs as possible can survive, I guess.

What’s really weird to me is that even though they’re frogs, I get the feeling that they’re not born as tadpoles.

There aren’t really any bodies of water in the labyrinth, and I’ve never seen anything that even resembled a tadpole.

So are they just straight-up frogs from the second they’re born?

I guess they’re monsters from another world, separate creatures that just happen to resemble the species from Earth, so it’s not that weird if they don’t follow the same life cycle, but somehow that explanation doesn’t satisfy me.

And also, even though they don’t have a tadpole pre-evolution, they somehow have a frog evolution.

The frogs that I saw in the Lower Stratum were stupidly huge.

How huge, you ask? Like they might be able to swallow a whole snake in one bite.

There’s a saying about fattening frogs for snakes, but I’m pretty sure this frog fattened itself up so it could kick a snake’s butt.

It made me realize there are a lot of monsters that start out weak but can get really strong if they evolve a bunch. Just like my original species, the taratect.

That wimpy frog grew up so big and strong. I was actually moved!

But even that big frog is only average at best in the Lower Stratum’s power rankings.

It certainly could never run with the big dogs, like earth dragons and Mother.

In the end, it’s still just a frog, I’m sad to say.

I mean, there could be some even bigger, crazier frog that I just don’t know about, but that would probably only be in the Bottom Stratum, where I’ve never been.

I really doubt such a thing exists, though.

Anyway, I doubt anyone has this much expertise on the ecology of the Elroe Frog.

I only gained all this information by observing them in the Upper, Middle, and Lower Stratums, after all.

I’ve even done dissection experiments in the form of catching and eating them, so basically, the only thing that’s left that I don’t know about frogs is what they look like when they’re first born!

I guess the way to truly complete my collection of knowledge would be to investigate if there really are any frogs in the Bottom Stratum… No way in hell I’m going that far, though.

As it stands, I’ve more than earned the right to call myself a “Frog Master.”

So feel free to give me the Frog Master title anytime, okay, Ms. Divine Voice (Temp.)?

There’s no such thing, huh? Figures…