"Good evening, my lovely little slaves to fate."
Shishimai Rinka was a highschooler who ran a small café named Lion House in place of her grandmother. She lived her life much like any other person her age, but one day, she was caught up in an explosion while returning home on the train alongside her friend, Hitsuji Naomi. In an attempt to save her friend's life, she shields her on instinct the moment the explosion goes off, losing her life in the process. However, before she knew it, she was back at Lion House, happily chatting with her friends as if nothing had happened in the first place.
A few days later, she found herself in a strange world. Here she met Parca, an odd girl claiming to be a goddess. It turns out that she had somehow become a participant in Divine Selection, a ritual carried out over twelve weeks by twelve people, which allowed them to compete in order to undo their deaths. What shocked Rinka most of all, however, was the presence of her friend Mishima Miharu amongst the twelve.
In order to make it through Divine Selection, one must eliminate others by gathering information regarding their name, cause of death and regret in the real world, then "electing" them.
This turn of events would lead to her learning about the truth behind her death, as well as her own personal regrets. She would also come to face the reality that Miharu was willing to throw her life away for her sake, as well as the extents to which the other participants would go to in order to live through to the end.
Far more experiences than she ever could have imagined awaited her now, but where will her resolve lead her once all is said and done...?
His phone buzzed. A text from an unknown number.
Max leaned back in his worn gaming chair, the glow of his triple monitors painting his face blue. “It’s fine,” he muttered. “I just need a spoofer.”
Nice spoofer. But you should have bought mine.
“You’re a ghost,” Max whispered, launching Eclipse Online with trembling fingers.
The problem was that good spoofers cost money, and Max had spent his last forty bucks on instant ramen and a month of VPN. So he did what any desperate programmer with an ego would do: he decided to write his own. Three days later, at 2:47 AM, Max cracked the last Red Bull in his fridge and stared at his creation.
He opened the spoofer’s source code. Scrolled past the clever hooks and the elegant lies. Buried deep in the kernel driver, hidden inside a function innocuously named UpdateSystemMetrics , he found it.
Max had a problem. A big, flashing-red-light, “your access has been permanently denied” kind of problem.
USB device not recognized. Windows failed to start correctly. A problem has been detected and Windows has shut down to prevent damage to your computer.
Now every time he launched the game, he was greeted with the same message: Hardware ID banned. This device is permanently restricted from Eclipse Online services.
Max reached for the power strip, hand shaking. He never touched Eclipse Online again. But sometimes, late at night, he’d hear his hard drives spin up on their own—a soft, whirring whisper from the dark.
The game loaded. No ban message. He sat in the main menu for a full minute, waiting for the hammer to fall. Nothing.
He looked at the window. The glow of the monitors suddenly felt less like light and more like a cage.
His phone buzzed. A text from an unknown number.
Max leaned back in his worn gaming chair, the glow of his triple monitors painting his face blue. “It’s fine,” he muttered. “I just need a spoofer.”
Nice spoofer. But you should have bought mine.
“You’re a ghost,” Max whispered, launching Eclipse Online with trembling fingers.
The problem was that good spoofers cost money, and Max had spent his last forty bucks on instant ramen and a month of VPN. So he did what any desperate programmer with an ego would do: he decided to write his own. Three days later, at 2:47 AM, Max cracked the last Red Bull in his fridge and stared at his creation.
He opened the spoofer’s source code. Scrolled past the clever hooks and the elegant lies. Buried deep in the kernel driver, hidden inside a function innocuously named UpdateSystemMetrics , he found it.
Max had a problem. A big, flashing-red-light, “your access has been permanently denied” kind of problem.
USB device not recognized. Windows failed to start correctly. A problem has been detected and Windows has shut down to prevent damage to your computer.
Now every time he launched the game, he was greeted with the same message: Hardware ID banned. This device is permanently restricted from Eclipse Online services.
Max reached for the power strip, hand shaking. He never touched Eclipse Online again. But sometimes, late at night, he’d hear his hard drives spin up on their own—a soft, whirring whisper from the dark.
The game loaded. No ban message. He sat in the main menu for a full minute, waiting for the hammer to fall. Nothing.
He looked at the window. The glow of the monitors suddenly felt less like light and more like a cage.