Three days had passed since I made a genius prince consider a career in slam poetry.
Since then, Broken Heaven Sect had enjoyed a sudden—and highly suspicious—popularity boost.
Fresh buns showed up daily.
Someone donated actual swords.
Even the chickens seemed to glow faintly with spiritual energy.
But none of that mattered, because I had one thought burning in my mind:
Mr. Fujimoto.
The man who once made me rewrite forty reports in Comic Sans because "it looked less threatening."Who said, "Work-life balance is a state of mind," right before handing me a 72-slide deck titled Urgent—For Tomorrow Morning.
He had been in the crowd.
Or... something wearing his face.
That Morning
I found Grumblebeard in the main courtyard, playing chess with a ghost. The ghost was winning.
"Elder," I said, crouching beside him. "How much do you know about reincarnation cases like mine?"
He scratched his beard. "Mm. The usual story. Someone dies with unresolved fate, strong obsession, or enough spiritual debt to punch a hole through samsara. Why?"
I hesitated. "What if... someone else from my old world made it here too?"
He paused mid-move. The ghost knight cackled and flipped the board.
"That," he said, "would be very bad news."
"Why?"
"Because it means Heaven made a mistake."
Later, Mu Lian and I sat by the sect's tiny koi pond, where the koi had long since escaped and been replaced by a single very judgmental turtle.
"You've been brooding," she said, poking me with a stick.
"Not brooding. Strategically processing."
"Strategically processing what?"
I hesitated again.
"I think... someone I used to know is here. And I don't mean like 'shared past lives'—I mean from Earth."
She frowned. "How could they get here?"
"I don't know. But if they're here on purpose… that means someone's pulling strings."
We sat in silence, broken only by the turtle spitting water at us like it disapproved of plot twists.
That Night
The alert came while I was mid-nap on the roof.
System Prompt: Hidden Instance — [Administrative Annex: Forgotten Sector A-7] Available
WARNING: This area is not sanctioned by the Dao of Slack.Entry will initiate Passive Bureaucratic Observation.Proceed?
I stared.
Then, as a responsible cultivator?
I selected [Yes] and rolled over into the portal that had silently opened beneath me.
Scene: Forgotten Sector A-7, Somewhere in the Celestial Bureaucracy
It was… an office.
A giant one.
Gray, infinite cubicles. Clacking abacuses. Spiritual typewriters. Giant floating ledgers.
A glowing spirit receptionist looked up and said in a flat voice:"Welcome to Sector A-7, Discarded Reincarnation Cases Division. Please take a number and scream into the void if you are lost."
I looked at the ticket in my hand: #404.
A familiar voice behind me sighed.
"You never could read fine print."
I turned.
It was him.
Mr. Fujimoto. Wearing the same ill-fitting tie and condescending smirk.Except now, he radiated celestial Qi like a bureaucratic demigod.
"You're real," I said, stunned. "You really came here."
"I didn't come here," he said. "I was promoted."
"...To what? Assistant God of Middle Management?"
He ignored the jab. "You died with unresolved karmic chains. That flagged your soul for cross-dimensional drift. You were supposed to be scrubbed and reassigned."
I blinked. "Scrubbed?"
"Memory-wiped. Recycled. Fed back into the reincarnation wheel."
"But I wasn't."
"No. You slipped through a filing crack—because, surprise—someone in this dump used an expired soul manifest and triggered the Dao of Slack."
I raised a hand. "Okay, two things.One: That sounds like your mistake.Two: This sounds like my problem now."
"Wrong on both counts," Fujimoto said. "I've been reassigned to fix 'problematic isekai cases.' And you? You're a walking anomaly."
"You were a mid-tier manager in HR," I pointed out. "How are you a celestial administrator now?"
He straightened his glowing ID badge. "Same job. Bigger clipboard."
He walked with me past rows of cubicles filled with spirit clerks, all processing celestial complaints like:
"Sect Overuse of Meteor Sword Style, Again."
"Petitioner Demands Rebirth as Handsome Dragon."
"Misfiled Soul Now Haunts Teapot (See: Incident #CaffeineSpook)."
"This is madness," I muttered.
"It's Heaven," he said. "Efficiency and madness are siblings here."
He stopped at a floating terminal and pulled up a profile—mine.
"Your presence is attracting attention from Upper Divines. You're cultivating through a path that shouldn't exist. You've disrupted at least three sect balances by doing less than the legal effort threshold."
"You mean napping."
"Yes. Your napping is too effective."
He handed me a scroll.
"Sign this. Voluntary self-erasure. We'll wipe your soul gently. Reinsert you back into Earth."
I stared at the paper.
"Option B?"
He frowned. "There is no Option B."
"Cool. I choose Option C."
"There is no—"
I flicked my finger.
A spark of Qi pulsed through the scroll.
It burst into flames.
A nearby clerk screamed, "Unauthorized Insight Ignition!"
Fujimoto stared at me.
"You haven't changed."
"And you're still trying to fire me in every life."
The portal behind me reopened. My window out.
"You can't run forever," he called.
"I don't plan to," I said. "But I'm done running for you."
I stepped back through.
Return to the Mortal Realm
The portal spit me out into the Broken Heaven courtyard. Stars overhead. Quiet. Peaceful.
Mu Lian stood nearby, arms crossed.
"I just watched you fall out of the sky."
"I fell into cosmic HR," I said.
"Of course you did."
I sat down on the grass, breathing slowly.
Something had changed.
I wasn't just lucky.I was leaking anomalies.
And now, the people who ran reincarnation wanted me gone.
System Notification: Dao of Slack Resonance Increasing
You have resisted celestial redirection.Path expanded: "Wayward Rebellion Against Overstructured Fate."New Trait Acquired: "Subtle Defiance Aura" — Bureaucrats within 10 meters lose 10% efficiency.
I smiled.
Let them come.
Heaven made its paperwork.
But I had a pillow, a plan, and a palm full of indifference.