Back in the Dungeon Maker Jin would have preferred to work on his idea for a new dungeon. However, he realised that there were a number of issues that he shouldn’t be delaying. One of such problems concerned the Farming World.
There were many updates on his minions’ scouting missions, but the most intriguing thing was the reports about his newest addition of monster force – human slaves.
Jin asked the System to show him a live feed where regrettable his biggest worry turned out to be true. Among the slaves, hundreds of them were ordinary humans. It was a somewhat unsettling feeling which Jin should ironically be accustomed by now.
The dungeon supplier had already foreseen that one day they would inevitably capture some humans, but it was still bizarre acknowledging that he now literally owned the lives of hundreds of them, who were supposed to be equal to him given their country’s laws.
It was true that amongst his monsters there were those with human like appearances, like Ke Mi, Niu Lang and of course the werebeasts. Yet at least in his subconscious, he could justify that Ke Mi was multiple centuries old, which made it a bit hard to think of her as a human, and Nie Lang was given to him by the System.
The werebeasts had initially been human, but Jin could not help but associate them as a werebeast, a different species, though if he was honest, he might admit that it was just his conscience trying to pacify itself.
And then there were the Savants, which Kraft had ‘gifted’ Jin to help and protect him. They had always been a grey area. Even though their bodies were technically robots, they still possessed their human memories. Were they really that different from humans?
Jin kept silent for a while as he was sorting his thoughts.
“Not the most ideal form of monsters but they are still regarded as resources.” The System stated as sort of console for Jin who seemed to be deeply rooted in thought.
“… yeah, I guess humans are monsters in the eyes of other species…” Jin sighed and finally accepted the fact that the System could capture humans too. Just mulling his brain was not going to solve this problem.
Even if he released them back to the farming world, would they want to return back as slaves again? Should Jin give a choice for them to stay? And if he does that, would that make him biased against other monsters who were forced to stay under his command?
That was especially true when the humanoid species like the orcs and goblins too viewed the humans as monsters too. However, he was curious why slaughtering the Ruby Rats did not yield him any of the cultivators or even the demon exorcist trainees, and that was where the System stepped in to reason with him.
“It is not because they have resurrective powers, the System had programmed your weapons and powers such that they will not resurrect anybody from this Earth. Even if you use your monsters, they will not be able to capture anybody from this place.” The System explained which made Jin even more curious.
“Treat it as a programming syntax. It will create a paradoxical loop or a potential bug in the system commands. System had performed simulations before and had deduced it was not worth the problem to catch humans from this particular Earth.”
“However, humans from other worlds were of a different matter. Though they may look like humans, their DNA syntax varied greatly from the ones in this Earth, allowing the System to capture them. So technically speaking, those humans that you obtained were of irregularity and can be considered as out of the norm from your ‘standard or average range’ of homo sapiens.” The System explained, and Jin took the time to digest the information.
Jin eventually accepted the information the System had given and believed it for now until he has further concrete evidence of its word. Still, the dungeon supplier would meet with them later and decide on his future course of action. He took another look at the reviews and was delighted to find a lot of construction materials were among them. (All thanks to the hundreds of dead Demon Rats.)
“That will definitely reduce the cost of my new idea.”
The System briefly recounted the efficiency of Wolte, the Silver Mage and Dark Templars, and also informed that they had just captured the last two of the Elder Demons that Gold required Jin for the parts of the Living Armour plates were captured.
“What?! Who captured the Burning Lion Demon and Water Snake Demon?”
“Who else but yours truly?” Kraft appeared and removed his coat. “Gosh, that place was freezing cold. Any longer in there and I’d have gotten frostbite.”
“Why did you do that?” Jin queried. “You normally won’t lift a finger for this kind of things.”
“Why you hurt me, Master! I do a good deed, and everyone treats me like I’ve gone crazy.” Kraft dramatically played the part of a wronged samaritan. Jin just watched the theatrics without entertaining him, patiently waiting for Kraft to get serious again.
“Tssk, you are no fun. And here I brought a new present for you, one I know you will love. Our ‘buy two get three’ deal included a Scholar from the Farming World and guess what? She is rather adept in regards to Steam Tech!”
“North or South Scholar?” Jin was surprised at this revelation.
“None of them. You have one more try. Maybe third time’s the charm.” Kraft conjured two ceramic plates with ‘X’ on it, emphasising that Jin was wrong while also asking the penguins for some warm food and a hot Blue Mountain coffee via the Dungeon Maker.
“A new Scholar? But I remember Gold telling us that the selection is still far away. There should only be four Scholars at a time, and West was killed according to him.”
“Nah, still wrong. Well, can’t fully blame you for getting wrong information with Gold not knowing any better. We found the Scholar of the West. Turns out that North and South turned her into an undead by binding her soul to the two Elder Demons.”
“Oh?” Jin quickly used the Dungeon Maker to check on the stats of the Scholar of the West. “Weslie, huh…” Jin turned his console screen to Gold’s home instance to have a look at the new Scholar and marvelled at how affectionate Gold was treating her.
“Hoooohhh. Is this why you’ve been so cooperative suddenly? Didn’t know you supported their relationship so much that you were willing to kill those demons for her.” (Was this old fox, a softie after all?)
“Hahah! Just doing a service for a colleague. Besides, we are going to turn her into our spy very soon just like we did with Ayse.” Kraft explained how she was the creator of the Steam Tech and all other technology that the Demon Rats were using.
“Wow, given her abilities, she will be instrumental in the future. Honestly, she sounds much more like a Scholar compared to Gold.” Jin stated bluntly, and Kraft laughed hysterically.
“Oh, that’s a good one. A good burn. Come to think of it, did Gold ever tell us what speciality he had.” Kraft asked ‘innocently’ before he thanked the penguins for bringing the food to him.
“I swear if Gold tells us it’s martial arts, I will make him retire and focus just on farming. Hmm, but that’s already pretty much what he is doing most of the time, anyway.” Jin said before he briefly analysed the four Elder Demons in the Dungeon Maker.
“Should probably be something more general like farming. I guess in the Farming World, this makes him very valuable. Or else, how would he know about the living armour plates.”
“Speaking of them, did you know that the Elder Demons required for the upgrade were pretty much a pet project by the Scholar of the West?” Kraft fanned the flames as he sipped his coffee slowly.
“Ehhhh??? Don’t tell me that he was really missing her so much that he manipulated me into getting her pets… I am so going to punish him if that’s the case.” Jin recalled how terrible the fight was with Keyrin and not to mention that troublesome spider which apparently was called Spiky according to the System’s revised entry.
“Punishment? That sounds right my alley. Would love to see the reaction on Weslie’s face when you tell him.”
“You sick bastard,” Jin said as he stole a piece of tonkatsu from his plate.
“Always was and always will be.” Kraft agreed as he poured some of this coffee into his Tonkatsu curry rice making Jin nearly puke out the cutlet he was chewing on. “What? Coffee Curry? Never heard of it? Want to give some a try?” Kraft asked with a mischievous grin.
“No thanks…I’d rather trust Lynn than your version.” Jin shook his head furiously, which turned out to be a mistake. With a snap of his fingers, Evon appeared jumping into Jin’s face and temporarily disabling him. (Jin probably felt that if he struggled more, Evon would use a stronger anaesthetic to numb him.)
Not missing the chance Kraft used his chopsticks to shoot another cutlet directly into Jin’s surprised open mouth and another one in Evon’s direction as a reward for playing along. Unable to prevent it, Jin swallowed it down. It tasted better than expected, but he wouldn’t admit that to Kraft after what he did.
Knowing better than to try and argue with Kraft he gave a deadpan stare and subsequently asked the System for details about his two Sub System Users.
“They returned back to the terrace house not too long ago. One is in the bathroom while the other is already resting on their bed.”
“Want to see some steamy action?” Kraft teased, and Jin only gave him a death stare back in return.
“Good. Looks like you still have some moral inclination and haven’t been infected by this perverted old fox yet.” Yun suddenly appeared right behind Kraft and pulled his ear.
“Ow ow ow! That’s painful, Yun!” Kraft complained, but Yun was not letting go at all. Apparently, she had infused herself with a cultivation that …was good at pinching. It was some type of crab cultivation though Jin was unable to clearly identify it as the silhouette was only briefly revealed.
“The girls are my responsibility. Try anything funny, and you two will have to answer to me.” Yun warned before performing the very same disappearing act which most bellators nowadays did.
“I will get the information from them some other day. Looks like everyone had a rough day.” Jin sighed, remembering he had not slept for a long time already. However, it was more vital to complete the new idea as soon as possible, so his sleep would have to wait a bit.
“So what are you going to do?” Kraft asked with more seriousness as he continued with his food.
“A Dungeon Cave in the Goblin World.”
“That’s a surprise. Why not putting a store there?” Kraft asked as he found it intriguing.
“Nah, it feels too unnatural to place a dungeon supplier store there. But! That does not mean I cannot take money from them in other ways. It will be a store but not exactly a store.” Jin said as he pitched his idea to Kraft and the System.
First things first, Jin was going to place it at the borders between the orcs and goblins. Right smack at the middle. Then he would be using Goblin King Sol and Orc King Frost Echo to spread the news about the discovery of the new dungeon he made.
It was going to be exactly like the traditionally styled dungeon where a party of four would enter the dungeon and kill monsters. Upon killing the monsters and surviving the traps in the dungeon, there would be a chest at the end of each dungeon floor. Not only that, clearing a level will reveal a staircase down to even more troublesome foes.
Loot wise? The System had noted that the Demon Rats turned items were an overall boon. A lot of them were growable seeds, and Werejackal Grey had identified them as weapon plants and armour plants which could be grown within their home instance or the Floating Agriculture Sector in the Dungeon City Fortress.
With a bit of DNA manipulation, the armour and weapon plants could produce a significant variation of loot for the Goblin and Orcs to equip. That way, the Orcs would have a reason to fight while attempting to keep peace with the goblins.
How would they do that?
Jin had ensured that the party of four would need at least a surviving goblins and an orc or else they would be rejected out of the room. And because the Dungeon Cave was still a dimensional instance, any party that lost one party member could be kicked out of the Dungeon Cave though Jin was still theory crafting and changes would be made along the way.
“But of course, not during a fight. That would be stupid. The party will be teleported after they finished their room back to an Altar in front of the cave. And with their treasure chest too. Depending on how far they made it, they will get only a fraction of the prizes, but we want to motivate them to try again after all.”
He believed that would at least force them to comply watching each other’s back. However, Jin understood that this was just an ideal scenario, and it was questionable how successful it would be.
So, in order to establish a precedent and also show off such trust was possible, Jin was going to ask the Goblin King and Orc King to come together, hoping them to participate the very first dungeon crawl.
While it could prove dangerous to any kings, the two were already under the protection of the System so even if they somehow died, they could simply be resurrected. In fact, Jin predicted that it would deepen their bond and may prove to be the start for a healthy Goblin-Orc relationship.
“Ok, that covers the rewards part, but you haven’t told us how exactly you will profit from this.” Kraft was curious how it was going to work.
“Nothing in this world is free. I plan to add an Altar of some sort right in front of the Dungeon Cave. It will provide them with the ‘blessing of safe return’ in exchange for something…which I had yet to work the kinks out.”
“Perhaps an offering of at least forty silvers. And without it, they won’t be allowed entry into the dungeon entrance. I think we can later ask for a higher price, for those who are able to conquer the first five floors.” Jin answered as he began to visualise the whole concept, and Kraft nodded his head.
“Sounds good, but just putting weapons and armours inside as rewards will limit your customer base. You should add other things like fruits, vegetables and stuff like that.” Kraft replied.
” After a war, most of the Orcs and Goblins won’t travel to the end of their borders for some adventure. They require money to buy food. Therefore, we should give them what they crave. Let’s also insert junk like stuff we get from the Demon Rats to make it rarer for tastier food materials to appear.” Kraft suggested capitalising on the current situation.
“We can use a system similar to how pachinko works. We ‘give’ them stuff they won’t need in the dungeon as their rewards and repurchase it posing as merchants outside the cave. It will make them think: ‘Hey! It’s worth it to enter the dungeons!’.” Kraft added, and Jin’s eyes opened up.
“A fake self driven economy….one that benefits us and not them,” Jin whispered to himself.
“Well, technically you can make it benefit them, but that can come later! You need the money, right? Anyway, you will appear more magnanimous, if you benefit them later down the line, instead of giving them everything up front.” Kraft continued his ramblings as he worked his brain juice.
“And we can also charge portal services to controlled town areas. Heck, we can even charge them by providing some ‘services’. If we reward them with a seed of some food and use ‘magic’ to make it grow, they can get it cheaper than buying it upfront. We can earn back our ‘losses’ know.” Kraft spoke slyly but said all these were just ideas for his master to play with which Jin got even more interested.
“I see, I see… I will get right to it!” Jin sounded very motivated as he fired up his Dungeon Maker to see if it was feasible. All the sudden brainstorming made Jin feel that this particular Dungeon Cave concept he created could be the next big thing in the Goblin World. All he need to do was to play it right. There would be some manipulation in the back end with the two kings and Jin would need the aid of Qiu Yue to do so.
“Oh and eh make the entrance fee cheaper. A traveller pays like a silver for like 5 days of rest in an inn.” Kraft snorted when he remembered Jin wanted to charge 40 silvers for it, there would literally be no one coming at all to venture if the price was that exorbitant. Economy in the Goblin World does not work the same as the Earth his master was staying in.
“Then, I guess I really need to make use of the Goblins that Qiu Yue had contracted for more information.” Jin was thinking of the ministers especially the one versed in economics to advise on some things as well as asking the Deep Ones to start putting some value on the items he wished to place in the dungeon chests.
“Looks like another sleepless night!” Jin smiled to himself as he too called for a Blue Mountain coffee via the penguins.
