Population

"My Lord! You finally come back!"

Pippi ran to Isaac. She was about to give her master a hug, but a big hand caught her head before she could come closer.

"When I was away, what had happened?" Isaac asked, squeezing Pippi's head.

Pippi ignored Isaac's words. She kept trying to hug her master. "My Lord! Good thing you came home. Our Dungeon is in danger!"

Instantly, the veins on Isaac's temples bulged out and then he snapped her forehead.

"AW!"

Only then did Pippi calm down.

Pippi began to tell him what had happened during Isaac's leaving while stroking her red forehead.

"For the first four months, there were no problems, Lord. However, in the last two months, many humans had entered the Dungeon. Some of them have already gone through the second floor." Pippi said it with a worried face.

Instead of getting worried like Pipi, Isaac smiled broadly.

This was exactly as his plan. After six months had passed, his Dungeon was already packed with humans to the brim. That way, he could farming without the need to let monsters out of the Dungeon.

However, before harvesting the ripe humans, Isaac needed to check the condition of his Dungeon first.

"Activate Control Panel."

A transparent screen with an enormous map was displayed in front of him. On the map, he could see two dots with two colours. The black dots showed the location of monsters, while the red dots showed the location of humans.

There were also rows of letters, numbers, and statistical charts regarding the number of monsters in the Dungeon.

After reading the reports for the first four months, Isaac stroked Pippi's head. "All Normal. Good work."

Hearing Isaac's praise, Pippi, who was initially worried, smiled. At the same time, she was astonished that the monster population was almost depleted. However, in the end, she ignored it. As long as her master was not angry, then there was no problem.

Pippi began to brag. "Of course. Pippi is the best!" said the little girl proudly.

Isaac continued to read the report for the past two months. His eyes traced on each row of numbers and charts. Then, he found something odd.

"The human death rate on Floor 1 in the past week was enormous."

Pippi, who heard Isaac's mumble, puffed out her chest, "Because the number of humans entering is increasing, Pippi bought a special monster that can finish them off, Lord!"

However, Isaac's reaction was the exact opposite of what she had imagined.

"No, Pippi. It's dangerous."

Pippi's face then changed into a questionly look.

The more humans killed, the more zenny generated. At first glance, that sounded like good news, but it wasn't always the case.

From Isaac's experience, there was a Baron named Zephyr who landed in a densely populated and rival-free area. Of course, he was very lucky.

He could easily farming, without worrying about dealing with the threats that would come.

When Baron Zephyr came to the annual Auction, he touted many items and monsters he had bought. The man was so wealthy, he even bought up Dungeon Bosses and high-class monsters.

Zephyr continued to buy powerful monsters and continued to slaughter as many humans as possible. He didn't give them a chance to survive, let alone enter his Dungeon.

As the time went by, the human population in that place decreased drastically. The local government then sealed the area, and all residents were evacuated.

As a result, the number of visitors that came to his Dungeon decreased drastically, as well as the amount of zenny he earned.

Baron Zephyr was starting to have a hard time developing the Dungeon. Meanwhile, the other demons kept sending him PvP requests. Of course, he refused all the requests. As a result, he began to be the subject of ridicule.

At first, he could still ignore all the insults that were directed at him. However, a noble's pride was too high. He started to accept every challenge from other demons.

With the Dungeon that had already been left behind by the humans, Baron Zephyr tried to withstand the onslaught of the other Nobles. Of course, he couldn't defend against them.

When he entered the fourth year of the game, his Dungeon was destroyed.

And Isaac didn't want that to happen to him.

"What monster did you buy, Pippi?" Isaac asked Pippi.

Isaac's eyes scanned the control panel screen. Trying to find the cause of human death in large numbers. There were about hundreds of monster lists in there.

"Red Vipers."

Isaac squinted his eyes into mere slits after hearing the name of the monster.

"Pippi bought them about three weeks ago," the girl added.

The Red Viper was an F class monster, even weaker than most monsters in Floor 1. With just one slash, the monster died instantly.

For novice Hunters under level 5, the Red Viper's venom was deadly. There was a possibility that the Red Viper preyed on low-level Hunters.

Isaac then looked at the population of the Red Vipers in the dungeon. His eyes bulged when he saw the numbers written there.

"10,451! This is overpopulation!"

The population of the Red Viper exceeded the normal limit. Each monster had its own breeding speed. In Isaac's current case, the Red Viper progressed faster than the Goblin.

Normally, each floor had 100,000 populations. And each type of monster had 500~1000. It depended on the needs.

Isaac then sold 10,000 Red Vipers.

[You get 5,000 zenny.]

To control the Red Viper population from soaring up again, Isaac needed to provide them with predators to keep the food chain balanced.

"Pippi, what is the predator of the Red Viper?"

"Hmm… Syb Falcon or Goblin."

Isaac looked at the population numbers of the two. He saw that the population of Goblins had reached 788. That was enough.

Meanwhile, there were only 50 Syb Falcons.

"No wonder they can sprout. The food chain is out of balance."

Then, Isaac bought 400 Syb Falcons and immediately dropped them into the Dungeon.

[Input x400 'Syb Facon (F)' to 1st floor.]

First problem solved.

After that Isaac checked the other population numbers, then he balanced them. He didn't want a similar mistake to happen in the future.

"This way humans can last longer," Isaac muttered.

Pippi's face was dumbfounded.

"Lord, Pippi still doesn't understand. Why are you making it easy for them? If they get stronger, they can infiltrate the next floor. They might as well get to the Crystal Core room. Isn't this dangerous?"

"It's very risky, but worth the reward."

Then Isaac began to explain to Pippi.

Another alternative to making lots of zenny without having to kill a lot of humans was to kill humans who had high quality.

The stronger the human, the more zenny was produced. Normally, humans who didn't experience awakening only worth 0.01 zenny. However, those who experienced awakening could be worth 100 to 1600 zenny, depending on how strong they were. A very strong human could reach 6000 zenny or more.

Isaac wouldn't have to worry if there were a lot of humans dying on the 3rd and 2nd floors. If they died there, it meant that was their time to be harvesting. However, it was a different story on the 1st floor, where the beginners were.

Thus, he wanted humans to ripen fully before they could finally be harvested.

And at the same time, he could not allow humans to get stronger than the monsters. If that happened, not only would he not get the zenny, but the Dungeon's power would weaken and he would lose the game.