"Ah, shit…"
The man fumbled around in his pockets for a few moments before pulling out a key and then roughly inserted it, letting the door swing open.
Creak–
Unlocking the door to the apartment, he walked in as quietly as possible, attempting to go unnoticed.
Step step step
But unfortunately for him, it seems luck wasn't on his side today.
A girl stood in front of him, glaring before pinching her nose in disgust and shouting.
"Ewww, Dad! Isaac's been drinking again!"
"Sigh.."
Isaac sighed at the sight of his sister ratting on him the second she was given the chance.
'I can't be bothered with this.'
"Piss off, Grace."
"Eek-! Dadddd! Isaac swore at me!"
He pinched the bridge of his nose in annoyance.
'Just.. ignore it.'
Isaac brushed past his sister and walked towards the bathroom, all the while ignoring her whining.
Slam
The bathroom door was shut roughly, and Isaac walked over to the sink.
Pshhhhhh-
While he was splashing his face with cold water, Isaac glimpsed his reflection in the mirror.
"...Wow, I look like shit."
He let out a hollow laugh at the sight.
The face reflected in the mirror had sunken eyes, rough skin and greasy hair.
It was the appearance of someone who hadn't looked after themselves in a long time.
Anyone who used to know Isaac would be shocked to see his current self.
But Isaac didn't care.
To put it more precisely, he didn't have the energy to care.
He'd long lost all motivation to take care of himself by now.
"Whatever…"
Isaac shut off the tap and turned to leave the bathroom.
Click
The door opened, and there stood a man much older than Isaac.
It was Isaac's father.
"Where have you been?"
"I just went out."
Isaac tried to be blunt in an attempt to get away from him, but as if his father wouldn't let that happen.
Grab
A hand roughly grabbed Isaac's shoulder as he tried to walk past.
"We need to talk."
The voice was cold, completely lacking the parental warmth you'd expect from a father.
Hearing the voice that was all too familiar to Isaac, his body stiffened.
"Can we do it tomorrow? I'm tired."
Grip
The hand gripping Isaac's shoulder tightened at his words.
Isaac clicked his tongue internally.
'That's going to leave a bruise.'
He raised his arm and tried to brush off the hand gripping his shoulder.
"I told you we need to talk."
The hand that was gripping his shoulder loosened.
Isaac took advantage of that and started walking towards his room.
"If you don't listen, you know what'll happen."
Freeze
Isaac's body froze at the threat his father so casually threw out, then…
"Heh."
He laughed.
"Was something funny?"
"..."
Isaac continued walking towards his bedroom, realising his mistake when another voice spoke up.
This time it was Isaac's mother.
"Why can't you be more like your sister?"
Grinding
Isaac ground his teeth in an attempt to hold back his words, knowing it wasn't worth the hassle.
'Even if I tried to explain anything to them, I'd just be blamed like always…'
'I'm sick of it..'
He finally reached his room.
SLAM
The door slammed shut, and he instantly locked it.
"Hahhhh…"
A breath flowed from Isaac's mouth as all the tension that had built up was released.
Then he walked over to his desk and slumped down in the chair.
Whirrrr
He turned on his PC and immediately opened a game.
Click click
—♪
When the game opened, cheerful music poured out of the speakers, raising Isaac's fallen mood.
.
❰The Knight of Stellaris❱
[Continue]
.
Click
.
[Loading… 32%]
.
[Loading… 76%]
.
[Loading… 99%]
.
[Loading Complete]
.
'Finally.'
He leaned forward in his chair, ready to start playing, but as if making fun of him, a notification appeared on his monitor.
Every word Isaac read made his heart sink further and further…
.
[IMPORTANT] Support for "The Knight of Stellaris" is ending.
[End of Service Announcement]
——————————————
We regret to announce the closure of The Knight of Stellaris. Thank you all for your support, and we hope you enjoyed playing. We will be keeping the servers open until March 2nd, 2026, 9:00 PM PST, so please continue to enjoy The Knight of Stellaris until the very end.
For more information, please check the official announcement on the TKS Forums linked below.
https://www.tksforums.net/news/eos-announcement
.
"Ha…" He let out a hollow laugh. "What a fucking joke."
Click
Isaac dismissed the notification and tried to play the game, forcing himself to ignore it.
••✦ ♡ ✦•••
But…
"What's the point?"
He had been fumbling around through the menus for about 10 minutes, but he couldn't find the motivation to do anything.
The EOS announcement made any enjoyment he had for the game vanish instantly.
Knowing the game would be closing down soon meant that there was no point in doing anything.
"..."
Isaac opened up the forums to look at the official post in hopes there would be some good news.
.
[The Knight of Stellaris - End of Service] - By Semroft.
.
Scrolling through the post, it was just a generic thank-you message, but he couldn't help but feel somewhat emotional seeing this.
The Knight of Stellaris, or TKS for short, was an RPG with life-sim elements.
It was a game Isaac had been playing since it was released a little over 5 years ago, when he was still in middle school.
Back when it first came out, its player base was huge thanks to it being one of the first of its kind, but as time passed, more and more people left the game behind and moved on to other things.
In the first place, since it was a live-service game, the popularity fluctuated hugely depending on how recently it was updated.
That being said, there were many other reasons behind the player's decline; the main one was probably the fact that after a certain point, the story just lost its charm.
At the time, there were rumours that Semroft had hired new writers, and that's why it felt so different, but whatever the reasoning, it didn't change the fact that the story became worse and worse.
Even the most recent update was poorly received due to how generic it felt, especially since this was the end of an almost 6-year-long story.
Unlike most, though, Isaac had never left the game.
In fact, he had done almost everything possible in TKS.
Every character he owned was completely maxed out, all of their personal stories were complete, and he had even been ranking within the top 5 in PvP consistently for the past 3 years.
On top of all of that, he had obtained every single achievement in the game, which was almost an impossible feat for a game like this.
'That didn't mean I didn't have any gripes, though.'
Even someone as committed as Isaac had been on the forums complaining to the devs about story or balance changes numerous times.
Why had he stayed with the game so long then?
There was just one simple reason.
'To me, TKS is special.'
It was a game that had helped him during the worst moments of his life, and so he was never able to drop it.
The fact that such an important game was shutting down was heartbreaking to Isaac.
.
└ ISIMPFOR2DWOMEN: Why did they have to ruin the game?
└ PandaDigger: About time.
└ Bunns28: Lololol deserved
└ Firenzy: Ded game xd
└ Leafar91: Surprised it made it this far
└ Livia_chan: Thanks for everything
└ Omnomer: Shit game
└ Pongpong: Semroft I would like to ask why you ruined the game, the most recent update 'Light vs Dark' was very disappointing and I would like to ask how any of your team thought this was a good idea, I've been playing this game since day 1 and have been looking forward to the ending of the story, even wading through all the messy content that had been released over the years…► See more…
.
As expected, the comments were very harsh for the most part.
There was even someone who had written a 3000-word comment describing his disappointment with the game, which Isaac found to be an entertaining read.
Seeing all of these comments, though, Isaac had a thought.
'Was TKS really that bad?'
Realistically? No, not really.
Even though the story had lost its charm, it was never bad, just very mediocre compared to the first few years of content.
And since it was one of the first of its kind, it also paved the way for all sorts of live-service life-sim JRPGs that are popular now.
'Honestly, people are being too harsh.'
Isaac pulled his keyboard forward and decided to write a comment of his own.
.
└ YvetteMyBeloved: Thanks for everything, good luck on the next project! <3
.
It wasn't anything fancy or over the top, just a simple thank you for everything they've done up until this point.
Once the comment had been uploaded, Isaac leaned back in his chair and pressed the power off button on his PC.
"Huh?"
But just as the PC shut off, it suddenly powered up again.
"Is it finally done for?"
It wasn't surprising to Isaac since he had had the computer since he was in high school; if anything, it surprised him that it had lasted so long.
'Well, whatever.'
He got up from his chair and flicked the switch off at the mains.
"?"
Only to discover that something else was going on.
Sitting back down at his desk, he was confused when he noticed that ❰The Knight of Stellaris❱ had been reopened.
Isaac leaned forward and picked up his mouse to close the game when…
.
[Loading… 49%]
.
[Loading… 83%]
.
[Loading Complete]
.
Not only had the game opened, but it had also somehow opened his save file.
But it didn't stop there.
Without Isaac's input, the game somehow self-navigated to the map, then to the demon realm, before moving the protagonist alone towards the Demon Lord's castle, fighting and killing enemies that appeared in the process.
At first, Isaac had worried that something was going on, but before long, he was enthralled by the strange situation unfolding before his eyes.
He watched as the characters he had worked so hard on slaughtered demons, strong and weak alike, perfectly and made their way towards the throne room.
Scraaaaapppeeee
The stone door to the throne room was pushed open, and there, sitting on the throne, was a woman with long, black, messy hair and hollow grey eyes.
It was the demon lord that Isaac had fought many times already.
[Demon Lord, we have travelled far and wide to put an end to your evil deeds! You shall pay for what you did back in my village, you foul fiend!]
Isaac couldn't help but lean forward even more at what he was hearing.
'This… This is new dialogue?'
In all his many playthroughs, he had never once encountered this scene, and as a hard-core fan, that made it even harder for him to look away.
[...]
The Demon Lord didn't respond to the Hero's words.
[...All my companions are dead because of you. Don't you have anything to say? Anything at all?]
"Huh?" Soren exclaimed.
The scene in front of him was being played through his account.
His account, in which he had maxed out every single character in the game and beaten every quest.
'What does he mean they're all dead?'
[...]
She looked at the Hero with sad eyes, but still didn't respond.
[Damn it all! Why—!]
The Hero stopped talking, instead raising his sword with tears in his eyes.
[I'll kill you…!]
And with those words, he rushed at the Demon Lord.
••✦ ♡ ✦•••
[Hahh… hahhh…]
The Hero stood there, fatal wounds covering his body.
[I did it.]
He said as he slumped onto the ground.
Before him lay the Demon Lord, in a similar state to himself.
[...]
She still said nothing, even while tears were streaming down her face, even when the life was fading from her body.
Her eyes were empty and held not a drop of life, and yet, she was still breathing.
Then the screen turned black.
"That's it!?" Isaac stood up and shouted in surprise.
BANG! BANG!
He heard his door being hit, but he ignored it and continued staring at the screen.
'Seriously?'
Isaac understood what had happened; the Hero had gone after the Demon Lord alone, and because he was alone, they both ended up dying, but he felt like there had to be more to the story.
TKS was next to impossible without a full party; he knew that, so then why had the Hero gone alone?
'Could everyone really have died?'
But even if that was true, there was still something that didn't make sense. Why was the Demon Lord looking at the Hero with pity? Why had she cried when she was dying?
"Ahh–! Damn it–!" He ruffled his hair in frustration at the half-assed story he had been shown.
Then all of a sudden the screen turned back on, sitting there on his screen was the Demon Lord, the same Demon Lord he had just watched die, or so he thought.
Unlike what he expected, the Demon Lord was alive, if only barely.
She stood over the Hero's body with a face full of grief before clasping her hands together in prayer.
[Mother Iria, may you guide this poor soul to rest.]
Her voice was hoarse and barely audible, but Isaac listened to every word intently.
Step… step…
The Demon Lord slowly exited the throne room, stepping over the bodies of her fellow demons before finally exiting the castle and looking up at the sky.
[I guess it's almost time…]
She sat down on the steps and hugged her legs close to her face.
[When will it be over…]
Ting-♪
[Ah, thank you, Mother Iria, I'm sorry for failing again.]
The Demon Lord suddenly began talking as if she could hear the goddess's voice, maybe a near-death hallucination, Isaac thought.
The sky turned black as time froze, then…
Ting-♪
Soren heard that sound again.
This time, however, something appeared.
.
[Do you want to save her?]
[Yes] [No]
.
He was given an option, an option to decide the girl's fate.
Isaac didn't even bother thinking about it; he just picked up the mouse and clicked without hesitation.
Click
.
[Yes]
.
[Choice Selected]
[Thank You, Isaac]
.
"Huh?"
Then his vision went dark…
————「❤︎」————