"Does everybody in this school have super hearing? This lounge's buzzing with people, and we were over ten meters apart.", Ace.
"The directional mic my brother installed in me can pick up human whispering fifty meters away.", Ortho.
"Oho! Impressive. Not even the fae and beastmen have many capable of that.", Lilia.
"Heh heh! I know, right? My brother's amazing! ...Ahem. Anyway, Idia got permission from the headmage to let me come with him to class. He's not desperately lonely or anything, okay?", Ortho.
"O-oh, gotcha. Sorry about that. My bad! You Shroud brothers are this mysterious, almost legendary presence on campus. Guess I got a little carried away talking about you.", Cater.
"Apology accepted. And I'm sorry for getting all huffy about it. I just don't want anyone getting the wrong idea about Idia.", Ortho.
"We're sorry, too.", Kalin.
*(!) He's definitely one of the nicer students I've seen so far other than Kalim. (!)*
"Bee the dubs, Orthy, are you here for the VDC auditions, too?", Cater.
"Yes, that's right! See, my brother...", Ortho.
~Flashback~
*Clickety-clack*
"I told Riddle at the housewarden meeting that I'd practice presenting my research... But it doesn't matter how many thousands of simulations I run in my head. Presenting stuff to an audience? That's unplayable difficulty! I still don't wanna get YEARGHed at by Riddle, though... So with that in mind, I built a sound library for my own voice. And I've finally finished a program that reads out text smoothly in real time as you type! I never knew I could sound so articulate. It's a level of fluency you'd never expect from synthesized speech! What do you think, Ortho? Is it sick or is it SICK? Nobody would ever guess the voice you're hearing is coming from text-to-speech software, right?", Idia.
"That's incredible, Idia! Your voice is so crisp and clear!", Ortho.
"Right? Man, I never knew I could sound so smooth! With this, I should be able to handle Q&A no prob. Whee hee hee! Science always beats brute-force grinding! Yeah, I'm a genius, I know.", Idia.
"Uh-huh! I'm sure Riddle Rosehearts will be very impressed.", Ortho.
"U-uh, don't tell him, okay? I want to keep this a secret from Riddle until the presentation's over. He's gonna give me that smug, know-it-all look and be all like, "See? That wasn't so hard, was it?" And I'm gonna go. "Wow, you didn't even notice I was lip-syncing? Talk about amatuer hour!" I'm gonna wipe that smug look off of his face. Whee hee hee!", Idia.
"Now, come on, Idia... It's not nice to pick on underclassmen.", Ortho.
"Oh, it's cool. He's a grade beneath me in school, but he's been housewarden longer than I have, so he's close enough to an upperclassman. I have to say, though-- after doing a deep dive into text-to-speech, it's a fascinating field. Virtual idols and stuff are popular nowadays. I was thinking of maybe installing a vocal synthesizer in you.", Idia.
"Ooh, that sounds like fun! I'd love to try singing.", Ortho.
"Great! I'll get you trilling like a canary in no time, little bro.", Idia.
~Flashback End~
"...So, my brother's been getting big into making vocal synthesizers. Since he went to a whole lot of trouble developing and polishing this, I want to see how far I can go with it. That's why I'm here auditioning.", Ortho.
"Wait, he PROGRAMMED a singing voice? Are you for real?!", Ace.
YOU ARE READING
Twisted-Wonderland: Heart of the Night
RandomThe story of a girl with hardly any memory to recall awakes in a strange land of magic. She is entered into a school of magic.... Except she has no magic and it's an all-boys school. A raccoon-cat creature to look after. Being the only girl in th...
