"Still no agreement?"
Annan looked at Ingrid, who had returned empty-handed.
He had put her in charge of securing the contestants' Portrait Rights. The contestants had never heard of anyone paying for a likeness, so a little persuasion and the promise of money had won them over. Every Dragon Clan contestant, however, had refused.
It was not that dragons had a keen eye for business. Their asking prices were simply more than Free City could afford.
Some demanded thousands of Gold Narls; others wanted all the sales revenue. Even the three Blue Dragons who were already citizens of Free City—Nocturis, Zelgaster, and Wolumanis—demanded 99 percent, leaving just 1 percent for Annan, the factory, and taxes.
Ingrid shook her head. "Their demands are outrageous."
"So greedy..."
If he had not wanted to recruit them, Annan would have told the factory to go ahead and make the models.
I'm making Figurines of other Blue Dragons, Red Dragons, Golden Dragons, Silver Dragons, and Copper Dragons, not you. See your names on any of them?
Dragons might be the darlings of the world and stand at the pinnacle of the Allen Continent, but their poor reputation had not come from nowhere...
"How are the Figurines selling?"
Ingrid continued, "Each Commercial Street received ten of each contestant's model. They sold out as soon as they went on sale, so we can't tell which ones are more popular."
"Plenty of people with money out there..."
Annan sighed. Two hundred Commercial Streets meant twenty thousand Figurines. At ten Silver Coins apiece, that was over two thousand Gold Narls in sales.
But those two thousand Gold Narls were not pure profit. Besides paying workers to make the Figurines by hand, they had to give the contestants half the profits as likeness fees.
It was a one-time windfall, though.