The wind in the mortal realm didn't smell like death anymore. It smelled like old coffee, printer ink, and faint ozone — the scent of bureaucracy's ghost still clinging to existence.
Ne Job sat cross-legged on a broken tombstone, trying to balance a stack of self-writing reports on his knee. The divine forms refused to cooperate; every line he finished auto-corrected itself into something worse.
> "Incident classification: Severe metaphysical misconduct by intern."
"Casualty count: Pending verification by the Department of Paper Cuts."
He groaned. "I kicked one undead clerk. One. Now they're calling it misconduct?"
Assistant Yue didn't even look up from her portable archive tablet. "Technically, you kicked a government official."
"Technically, he was dead."
"Technically," she said, "so are you, if you count your deletion record."
Ne Job paused. "...fair."
The two sat in a rare silence, surrounded by the newly quiet cemetery. Souls no longer queued in endless loops. The headstones had gone still, names stabilized, reality holding its breath.
Then the air snapped — not like thunder, but like an audit notice being sealed.
A parchment unfolded in midair, bearing the golden sigil of Lord Bureaucrat Xian himself.
Yue's expression stiffened. "We're being audited."
Ne Job's shoulders sagged. "Already? We just cleaned up the backlog!"
> Summons Notice: Bureau of Afterlife Compliance — Internal Audit Unit.
Subjects: Ne Job (Intern, Division of Chaos & Delivery), Assistant Yue (Level 2 Handler).
Reason: Discrepancy Detected in Post-Deletion Recovery Files.
Yue read it twice, then whispered, "They found the slip, didn't they?"
Ne Job reached into his coat pocket and pulled out the parchment he'd found at the end of the last mission — INTERN FILE 0000: TEMPORARILY RESTORED.
The ink shimmered faintly, alive.
He looked at Yue. "If they find this, I'll be deleted again."
Yue shut her tablet and stood. "Then we don't let them find it."
Before he could respond, the world twisted. The tombstones bent backward like opening folders. The ground inverted. Suddenly, they were no longer in the mortal realm.
They stood inside Audit Chamber 0 — a place between time and ink.
Rows of colossal desks floated in a void of black parchment. Quills wrote by themselves, fueled by memory. Bureaucratic shadows with no faces moved between the aisles, each wearing robes stamped INTERNAL REVIEW ONLY.
At the far end, behind a fortress of paperwork, sat Judge Shard — the same shard-eyed figure who once sentenced gods to re-training seminars.
> "Intern Ne Job," the Judge's voice boomed, "and Assistant Yue. You stand accused of procedural tampering, emotional interference, and unsanctioned soul restoration."
Ne Job opened his mouth. "In my defense, it was already unsanctioned when I got there."
Yue jabbed his side, whispering, "Do not joke with a Shard."
Shard's many eyes blinked in sequence. "Present the evidence."
The void rippled — and the Forgotten Clerk's veil appeared, hovering like a torn flag. From its threads, ghostly figures of released souls flickered, replaying their release at the cemetery. Each soul bowed in silent gratitude before fading again.
For a moment, the chamber was quiet.
Then the Judge spoke. "The backlog has been cleared. The system stabilized. Yet a corruption remains — your file, Ne Job. You are not fully registered in Heaven's archive. You are a paradox."
Ne Job felt the words like a chain tightening. "So what now? Delete me again?"
"No," said the Judge, voice softening. "This time, you audit yourself."
A mirror of pure ink appeared before him. His reflection wasn't solid — half Ne Job, half the Chaos entity he'd become. One side of his face flickered with divine sigils, the other with digital glitch.
Yue reached out, whispering, "Ne Job… if you look too deep, it rewrites you."
He smiled weakly. "Then I'll try not to blink."
The mirror pulsed once, and his memories unfolded — his time as an intern, the countless cases, the deletion, Yue's defiance, their exile. Every error, every laugh, every mistake written in overlapping scripts.
At the end of the record, one line shimmered, written in an unfamiliar hand:
> "If chaos learns compassion, does it remain chaos?"
The Judge leaned forward. "Answer, Intern."
Ne Job looked at the reflection — and smiled. "Only if bureaucracy lets it."
The mirror cracked, light bursting outward. The shadows reeled, the Audit Chamber trembling as order and chaos momentarily synced. When the light faded, the mirror was gone — and in its place, Ne Job stood whole again.
His pulseband glowed steady, no longer glitching.
Shard's eyes dimmed. "Audit complete. Status updated: Provisional Existence — Stable. You may return to duty."
Yue exhaled, the tension finally leaving her shoulders. "So… we passed?"
Shard smirked faintly. "For now. Your next assignment awaits in Division 3 — Mortal Realm Branch. Case Title: 'The Ghost of the Department Store.'"
Ne Job groaned. "Please tell me it's not another queue of dead shoppers."
"Only one," said Shard. "But she's been waiting since 1984."
---
As they exited the chamber, Ne Job turned to Yue. "So, back to work?"
Yue adjusted her glasses. "Back to hell. Same thing."
They walked into the light together, the sound of their laughter echoing across the paper void — the intern and his handler, still absurdly alive.