May 1st.
Judgment Day.
Ever since reading the diary yesterday, Horikita Suzune hadn't slept well all night.
She had insomnia again.
It had been a long time since she last suffered from it, yet this long-lost sleeplessness strangely felt familiar to her body.
Dark circles quietly staining her eyes.
Her head drooping.
Blurry vision.
A hazy mind.
…She herself didn't even know how she had made it to class.
But class still had to go on.
No matter what happened, class still had to go on.
That was a student's duty.
"Hey, hey, Ken, did you get your money?"
"What's wrong with this school? Didn't they say it'd be a hundred thousand?"
"I was gonna buy breakfast, but now I can't even pay."
"Don't worry about it, I still have plenty!"
"Hey, hey, Haruki, how do you have so much money?"
"Hehe, don't tell anyone. Ryuuen from C-Class gave it to me. He's really a good guy. Just doing some small stuff and I got fifty thousand. Isn't that basically free money?!"
"Thanks to him, I can spend without worry even at the end of the month. Hehe, look at the game console I bought earlier~"
Even while lying on her desk, Horikita Suzune couldn't stop those idiots' voices near the door from drilling into her ears.
"…Sigh."
She let out a quiet sigh and buried her head even deeper into her arms.
At this point, even sleeping in class wouldn't get points deducted anymore.
"What's wrong?"
A calm, overly "concerned" voice came from her left.
It was her deskmate.
Ayanokouji Kiyotaka.
"Don't worry about me."
Without lifting her head, Horikita muttered.
"..."
Very obediently, Ayanokouji shut up.
Then, the class bell rang on time.
Normally, this should have been morning assembly time, but for some reason it had been postponed to the third period. So even though the students had many questions they wanted to throw at Chabashira Sae, they could only endure it and attend class obediently.
Since Chabashira had once mentioned that the behavior exam would affect their evaluation, most students subconsciously restrained themselves a little.
But they soon realized—
The behavior exam was only the first month's special exam.
In any case, it was already over.
Besides, they also had this vague feeling that even if they didn't do anything, it probably wouldn't matter much.
After all, people like the Yamauchi trio and Kouenji Rokusuke still lived however they wanted even knowing it was an exam. Watching them be so free, it was hard for others to keep restraining themselves.
Small noises came from Yamauchi's seat.
The teacher on the podium ignored him and continued teaching.
"Hey, hey, why isn't little Kushida here today?"
Even though it was lowered, the voice was still clear.
"Without little Kushida, I don't even feel like attending class."
"So boring."
"Hey, Kanji, let's play games!"
Kushida Kikyo…
Was absent?
Hearing this, Horikita Suzune raised her head for the first time and looked toward Kushida's seat.
It was empty.
Only some textbooks and clutter from last week were still there.
…Was she sick?
Forget it. It didn't matter.
They weren't close anyway.
If anything, not having Kushida come over to bother her made things feel more relaxed.
Now she could quietly savor this helpless, chilling sense of despair.
Hurry up.
Hurry up.
Let the inevitable judgment come already.
The bell rang again.
But Horikita simply buried her head back into her arms.
"..."
The classroom grew noisy again.
The closer it got to the end, the more unbearable it felt.
Every second felt like her heart was being fried in a pan.
The diary had already warned me.
The clues had already been laid out.
The free daily supplies from the mall, the cafeteria's free vegetable meals…
All of it was telling her—
Some people in this school had empty pockets.
So why?
"Such a useless little sister."
It was like an auditory hallucination.
For some reason, her brother Horikita Manabu's cold voice echoed in her ears.
In the next moment, it quietly turned into Kushida's voice.
"Stupid Horikita Suzune."
"A bunch of defective products."
Then came Chabashira Sae's mocking voice.
…Am I sick?
Why am I hearing things like this?
Weakly, she buried her head even deeper into her arms.
Her arms couldn't cover both ears, but if she tilted her head a little, she could at least block one.
She should have raised her head.
She should have refuted them with confidence.
She should have told everyone that she was no longer her useless past self.
But the truth was—
She had failed.
She couldn't prove herself.
She could only sink together with D-Class's defective products.
What should I do, Brother…
—
You should download Genshin Impact right now.
If Asakusa Toru could read Horikita's mind, he would probably say that.
Unfortunately, he couldn't.
So he could only use the break time to quietly run to the corridor outside D-Class and slowly switch between several voice models he had collected before.
Then, sentence by sentence, he "voice-transmitted" them into Horikita Suzune's ears.
While switching, he also used her to test the skill's limits.
How far could it reach?
Could the sound turn corners?
Would obstacles weaken it, or block it completely?
He chose Horikita purely by coincidence.
After getting the ability last night, he had done simple tests with his recorder.
But mechanical recordings were very different from human hearing.
Plus, that infinite recorder had excellent sensitivity.
Using it as real data would definitely cause problems.
Something that sounded clear might actually be barely audible.
Something that seemed quiet might be deafening.
Of course, professional equipment could measure decibels accurately…
But he didn't have that.
So after thinking it over, he decided to mess with Horikita a bit.
And also pass along a message for Miss Two-Faced.
Unfortunately—
No matter how much he transmitted, Horikita reacted as if she were dead asleep.
No response at all.
…Amazing sleep quality.
I mean, it's not even class right now. Why are you sleeping this deeply?
Using her reaction to judge whether Voice Transmission worked was a failure.
He'd have to find someone else.
He could've tested it on B-Class students.
After all, he hadn't been idle this month. At least, by handing out recorders, he had excluded most people from being diary copy holders.
But this skill was a little too mysterious.
If he didn't test it on someone "pure" enough, he worried things might get out of hand.
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