Ne Job: The Intern from Hell — Chapter 122: "Return to the Living Queue"
The Bureau had quieted.
For once, it wasn't the silence of disaster—but the uneasy calm that comes after a storm's negotiation.
Rows of new terminals blinked to life across the Post-Mortal Affairs Department. Celestial clerks logged back in, their quills replaced by spectral styluses, their wings tinged faintly with administrative light. The smell of fresh parchment and divine ozone filled the air.
Ne Job sat slouched at his desk, hair half-scorched from the audit chaos, sipping from a mug that read "World's Most Temporary Employee."
Across from him, Assistant Yue reviewed reports stacked higher than a mortal apartment complex. The faint glow of her new badge—Assistant Protocol Overseer—cast pale lines across her focused expression.
> "The new reincarnation queues are stabilizing," she said without looking up. "But the human timelines are still… adapting. The system's reading a thirty-minute delay in the Southeast Division."
> "That's not bad," Ne Job said. "Last time we re-synced Heaven and Earth, it took a century."
Yue allowed herself a small smile. "You're comparing divine latency to mortal broadband again."
> "Both cause suffering," Ne Job said with mock solemnity.
The doors to the department creaked open. In waddled Dreivery Spirit Bao, his courier satchel stuffed with glowing receipts. He looked winded—as usual.
> "Delivery from Rebirth Logistics!" Bao announced. "Signed, sealed, slightly misfiled!"
Yue sighed. "Bao, you can't announce that something's misfiled before handing it in."
> "Transparency builds trust," Bao said proudly, dropping the stack on Ne Job's desk.
Half the stack immediately burst into harmless confetti.
Ne Job groaned. "We're still not using paper-safe sigils, are we?"
> "Budget cuts," Yue muttered.
While they scrambled to gather what was left of the report, the Bureau's ambient glow dimmed. The air shifted—like the world holding its breath. Then, from the central corridor, a low tone rang out: three notes, clean and unbroken.
Every clerk froze.
> "That's the Living Queue," Yue said quietly. "It's opening again."
Ne Job straightened. The Living Queue wasn't just a metaphor. It was the cosmic artery through which all souls waiting for rebirth passed—a shimmering procession of light, endlessly moving between dimensions. It had been locked during the audit to prevent "data corruption."
Now it pulsed again, its gates unfolding like an iris.
The two of them walked toward it. The massive hall beyond the atrium glowed with layered streams of souls—some glowing bright with karmic clarity, others faint and flickering. Heavenly staff guided them gently through lanes like customs officers of eternity.
At the center of it all, floating above the gate, a crystalline node pulsed with golden light. Yue checked her clipboard. "Queue node synced. Output stable. But…"
She frowned. "There's an unauthorized packet."
> "A what now?"
> "A mortal consciousness trying to re-enter without clearance."
Ne Job blinked. "You mean someone's trying to break into the reincarnation system?"
> "No. Someone's trying to return."
A sphere of light surged at the heart of the Queue. Waves of spiritual energy rippled outward. Bureau clerks panicked, scrambling to reinforce the containment glyphs.
The sphere cracked—revealing a silhouette within. A woman's figure, faint but undeniable, suspended mid-transition between existence and afterlife.
Yue gasped. "That's impossible. No mortal has ever—"
The sphere shattered. The light dispersed, and the figure landed gently on the polished floor, kneeling, breathing like she'd just escaped drowning.
Her eyes opened. Bright, human. Alive.
> "Wh—where am I?" she whispered.
Ne Job froze. His pulse skipped a beat. "Yue… tell me I'm seeing wrong."
Yue didn't answer. Her clipboard fell from her hand.
The mortal woman looked up, meeting Ne Job's eyes—and in that instant, the Bureau's lights flickered violently.
> "Ne Job?" she whispered. "You… you helped me once."
A memory surfaced—buried beneath layers of bureaucratic training and celestial forgetfulness. A field report, long ago. A mortal girl he'd guided through the Limbo Desk during his first week as an intern. The one case he'd never been able to file away.
> "No," he said under his breath. "That soul was supposed to be reborn centuries ago."
> "Looks like she found her way back," Yue said softly.
The queue alarms wailed. A new line appeared across every screen in the Bureau:
> WARNING: ANOMALY DETECTED. SOUL ID #0001 RETURNING TO ACTIVE STATUS.
Ne Job clenched his jaw. "First the audit, now this…"
The mortal girl's aura pulsed faintly as she spoke again. "Something's wrong down there. People remember things they shouldn't. Time's… cracking."
Yue's eyes widened. "She's carrying temporal residue from the mortal plane."
> "Meaning?" Ne Job asked.
> "Meaning she didn't just come back. She brought part of the mortal world's corruption with her."
The golden queue shimmered, destabilizing as the souls began to panic.
Ne Job exhaled sharply. "Alright then," he muttered, rolling up his sleeves. "Looks like we're doing fieldwork again."
Yue gave him a look that was equal parts exasperation and admiration. "We just fixed Heaven."
> "Yeah," he said, glancing at the mortal girl. "Now it's time to fix Earth."
The Bureau's doors burst open as celestial alarms rang.
The audit may have ended, but the real crisis—one that blurred the line between life, death, and memory—had just begun.