In 2105, with the great advancement of technology, the hIE's are human-like-robots/androids, and were used as public and personal servants for their society. One person, named Arato Endo, a high school student, treats hIEs like equals or humans, and he wished of buying one, but his financial situation hinders him from doing so. In the middle of a night, while he was returning home from a usual grocery store run, he was violently attacked by the hIE, and the electric-powered car, and he was only seconds before his imminent death, until Lacia, an abnormal hIE equipped with a weaponized coffin, comes to his aid, and saves his life. In the chaos that follows, a hacked electric car was threatening to run them over, and Lacia makes a deal with Arato to assume ownership to her in exchange for calling out to her and saving her life, and that she requires him to take full responsibility of her actions, to which he reluctantly accepts. After owning Lacia, and bringing her home, Lacia was enjoying her new, peaceful lifestyle, while Arato Endo is about to be dragged into these major events throughout his life, from being hired by the company who hosts an online fashion modeling audition, to being dragged into the fighting between the escaped hIE's from the Memeframe. But within these thrilling events and the thousands of hIE's that were made, there is a hidden mystery... not just when Lacia warns the entranced Arato she, like all hIE's doesn't have a soul... But something more.
Satoshi Hase serialized the novel, with illustrations by Supercell member Redjuice, in Kadokawa Shoten's Newtype magazine in from 2011 to 2012. The novel was compiled and published in book form on October 10, 2012. In 2013, Tokyo Otaku Mode began hosting an English translation of the novel, with animated versions of Redjuice's illustrations done by Wit Studio and animator Satoshi Kadowaki. During their panel at Anime Expo 2019, J-Novel Club announced a partnership with Tokyo Otaku Mode to release the novel in North America. The novel has inspired three separate manga series. Kagura Uguisu published the two-volume manga series Beatless: Dystopia in Kadokawa's shōnen manga magazine Monthly Shōnen Ace between 2012 and 2013. A single-volume four-panel spin-off manga, titled Beatless, was published by Kila. Ptolemy's Singularity, a spin-off manga series written by Gun Snark and illustrated by Mitsuru Ohsaki, was launched on Kadokawa's Famitsu Comic Clear website on April 11, 2014, with a preview chapter having been published on March 14. It has been compiled into seven volumes to date. ;' ;'
