Nico Noir Production (2)

Told, out of nowhere, to sign an employment contract.

"This is awfully sudden, is it not…?"

"Oh? I had assumed you came here because you were willing to affiliate with us."

Managing Director Kuroi of Nico Noir scratched his head idly.

"To begin with, I'm certain I sent you an email summarizing the contract terms in advance… Don't tell me you came without reading it?"

"Eh?"

Karona looked at Kokuyou. Kokuyou shook her head.

"No such email has arrived, Ojou-sama."

"Oh my. My apologies, then. AIs don't lie about that sort of work, so it must be an oversight on our end… Well then, young lady, would you mind looking over the documents there first? The contract terms are laid out in them."

For all his apologetic words, Kuroi didn't lower his head or his gaze in the slightest, and Karona felt a faint tug of distrust.

Still, since she'd been told to look at the documents, the conversation couldn't move forward without her reading them. And if the contract terms were spelled out inside, she'd have to check them anyway. Karona picked up the documents and began leafing through.

"Let me see? … Hmm, hmm-hmm… Sebas, could you take a look at this?"

"Ha. I shall, Ojou-sama."

There was a lot of text, so Karona tossed it over to Sebas.

"… I see. To summarize: you would be obligated to stream five days a week and successfully complete three or more dungeon-clear streams. On top of that, you would be expected to turn over seventy percent of your revenue to Nico Noir Production."

"Wha, seventy percent!? Pray tell, from what era is that tribute～!?"

Faced with Karona's astonishment, Kuroi wore a look that said this was only natural and gave a weary smile.

"It shouldn't be a bad deal. At the moment, you're a small-time B-Caster with under five thousand subscribers. However, simply by affiliating with us, a hundred thousand subscribers is a safe bet… In other words, you can assume your revenue will easily grow more than twentyfold."

If revenue went up twentyfold, then even after handing over seventy percent, she would still net six times her current take. That was the math.

"… One, one hundred thousand…!?"

"Do you know our box's rookie? Kurokawa Othello. He pulled in ninety thousand channel subscribers before his debut stream, and broke a hundred and fifty thousand after."

Kurokawa Othello. Nico Noir's rookie, and a name Karona had heard as well. A cheeky shota-type character with short black hair shot through with a white mesh streak.

His black-heavy monochrome outfit evoked an othello-board motif, and apparently his tsundere mannerisms were landing hard on the onee-samas of the world.

His weapon was a twin-wielded sword-and-pistol combo, the so-called gun-kata style.

"Of course, we'll produce you, provide acting coaching and combat coaching, and grant you access to this company's facilities. If you weigh all of that as service fees, commission, and lesson fees, seventy percent is actually quite lenient, don't you think?"

"… Now that you mention it, I suppose that's… true? Kokuyou, what do you think?"

"If I may be so bold as to offer my opinion, judging by what has been laid out so far, for a major corporate box the terms do fall within the range of lenient."

If Kokuyou said so, then perhaps that was the case… Karona was starting to be convinced.

Then Sebas cut in.

"One moment, Ojou-sama. The facility usage fees are not included. They are charged separately."

"Oh? Separate, are they? What does that mean?"

"But of course. It would be unfair to treat a talent who uses the facilities heavily the same as one who doesn't use them at all, wouldn't it?"

"… That does, certainly…?"

Managing Director Kuroi's words sounded reasonable.

"Even so, the absence of any stated usage fee is a source of concern… And there is more. As a condition of affiliation — 'reincarnation' is included."

"…'Reincarnation,' you say?"

"Reincarnation." In BCD, that meant "remaking your avatar and channel" — and when you did, not only your channel subscribers but also half of the Debris information that had accumulated on the avatar, essentially its experience points, would be wiped out, so it wasn't something one could undertake lightly.

"Well, obviously. Look at you. That avatar and channel concept of yours is unmistakably Amenato Mikado's — a follower of another production's talent, no? You'll need to at least remake it under our production direction, or we can't even begin."

And we can't guarantee your subscriber numbers either, Managing Director Kuroi added with a shrug.