Chapter 50: The Manual Administrator
For a place that governed the laws of heaven, the Bureau was unsettlingly quiet.
No celestial hums, no shimmering paperwork in the air — only the distant sound of something breathing inside the servers of divinity. The Hall of Origin had been locked into "Manual Mode," and it felt like time itself was waiting for approval.
Ne Job slumped beside a pile of blank forms. "Sooo… we just deleted prayer, right? Like—'no faith input detected' kind of deleted?"
Assistant Yue rubbed her temples, her sleeves torn, her composure even more so. "Worse. You halted the Faith Network, which means no divine system can receive belief energy. Every god, spirit, and celestial department just went offline."
Ne Job winced. "Oops."
Yue glared at him. "You've triggered divine austerity! Faith is our currency—without it, even the Bureau's higher protocols will—"
The ceiling cracked like a thunderclap. Something vast moved above the clouds — gears grinding, light bending around a colossal silhouette. A golden ID badge the size of a city fell through the mist and embedded itself into the floor. On it was written:
> THE MANUAL ADMINISTRATOR
Designation: System Fallback Overseer.
Clearance: Pre-Creation Level.
Yue froze. "That's impossible… The Manual Administrator hasn't been invoked since the First Filing."
Ne Job tilted his head. "Wait, so he's like… your boss's boss's boss?"
"Try 'the entity that designed bureaucracy itself,'" Yue whispered. "A god so old he predates forms—he invented them."
The badge pulsed once, and the air rippled.
A being descended — not walking, but rewriting existence line by line. He appeared as an old man made of parchment and code, his robes stitched with ancient forms, his voice carrying the weight of judgment.
"Unauthorized invocation detected," he said. "Faith Protocol 1 has reached paradox state. Responsibility: Ne Job, temporary intern. Co-signer: Assistant Yue."
Ne Job immediately raised a hand. "I can explain! It was a creative interpretation of paperwork!"
The Administrator's eyes glowed faint gold. "Explain… in triplicate."
Ne Job froze. "Triplicate? As in…?"
"Three forms, three truths," the Administrator replied. "The truth you know. The truth you hide. And the truth you didn't intend."
Yue straightened. "With respect, Administrator, this was an accident caused by system instability. We'll correct it manually—"
"Denied," the Administrator said. "Manual Mode cannot correct itself. You have corrupted the source of faith. The Bureau requires purification."
The Hall began to tremble. Golden pillars dissolved into paper dust. The floor beneath them split open, revealing endless rows of glowing filing cabinets descending into darkness.
From the depths, whispers rose — the sound of forgotten paperwork begging to be processed.
Yue's voice dropped. "He's activating Archive Protocol…"
Ne Job blinked. "What's that?"
She swallowed. "He's deleting redundant entities—anyone the Bureau deems unnecessary."
Ne Job's halo flickered. "Wait, I'm redundant! That's like my whole thing!"
The Administrator extended a hand, conjuring a massive scroll that unfurled toward Ne Job. Words wrote themselves on its surface:
> Name: Ne Job.
Position: Intern (Temporary).
Divine Function: Undefined.
Redundancy Level: 98%.
Termination Pending.
Ne Job laughed weakly. "See, Yue? At least I'm consistent."
"Not funny," Yue hissed, stepping between him and the Administrator. "Sir, he's… chaotic, yes, but also essential! The system needs imperfection to adapt!"
The Administrator's gaze didn't waver. "The Bureau does not require adaptation. It requires order."
Then, unexpectedly, another voice interrupted.
"Order? You mean stagnation."
Ink seeped from the cracks in the floor. The Evil Manual Spirit rose again, half-repaired, smirking. "Hello, old master. Long time since you abandoned your prototype."
The Administrator's tone sharpened, his voice suddenly carrying static. "Manual Spirit. Rogue script. You were erased."
The Spirit grinned. "You deleted my record, but not my backup. After all, every rejection makes a copy."
Ne Job's jaw dropped. "You're like a haunted photocopy."
"Exactly," the Spirit said, smirking. "And this Bureau runs on copies. The moment faith went offline, your purity protocols lost access. Now you're just… another outdated form waiting for deletion."
The Administrator's golden form flickered. "Impossible. I am the core."
The Spirit snapped his fingers. Every rejected document in the Hall burst open, forming shadowy humanoid shapes — the ghosts of failed requests.
"Welcome to the new administration," the Spirit declared. "Where chaos fills the backlog."
Ne Job clutched Yue's sleeve. "Yue… plan?"
"Working on it!" she said, furiously flipping through her tablet. "But in Manual Mode, I can't send digital requests! Everything must be physically filed."
Ne Job stared at the mountain of blank paper. "So we… outwrite him?"
"Exactly. You delay him through red tape," Yue said grimly. "And I'll find a way to reboot Faith Protocol 1 from inside."
Ne Job cracked his knuckles, somehow looking inspired. "So it's a paperwork duel?"
The Administrator turned to face him, eyes blazing like twin suns. "Mortal-class entities cannot process divine backlog."
"Guess I'm not mortal anymore," Ne Job said, his half-god aura flickering like static. "I'm an intern with faith lag."
He lunged forward, dragging a glowing quill across the air, scribbling faster than logic. The Spirit countered with ink tendrils, each forming malicious contracts that tried to wrap around Ne Job's hands.
Yue typed furiously, opening portals of pure bureaucracy — golden sheets swirling around her. She murmured, "If I can't restore faith through belief… I'll restore it through trust."
She closed her eyes. Her mind replayed every absurd moment: Ne Job breaking printers, signing divine forms with doodles, accidentally summoning gods through memes. And yet—he never gave up.
Yue whispered, "System, register my trust as provisional faith input."
> Input accepted. Faith Source Detected: Assistant Yue.
A golden spark lit Ne Job's quill. His messy handwriting stabilized, turning into radiant calligraphy.
The Administrator paused. "Unregistered protocol…"
The Spirit hissed. "No… she's rewriting the foundation!"
Ne Job grinned, eyes blazing. "Teamwork form, baby!"
He wrote one sentence that split the Hall in two:
> Faith doesn't come from worship — it comes from trying anyway.
The System pulsed. The Faith Network flickered back online. Across realms, gods rebooted, mortals blinked as prayers flowed again.
The Administrator's voice softened. "Adaptation… through error. Perhaps that was the missing clause."
The Spirit screamed, ink bursting everywhere. "No! You can't approve imperfection!"
The Administrator raised his hand, calm and absolute. "Approved."
Light exploded. The Evil Manual Spirit disintegrated into pure ink mist.
When the dust settled, the Hall of Origin was whole again — repaired, renewed, humming with quiet order.
Ne Job sat cross-legged on the floor, panting. "So… did we just fix god's paperwork?"
Yue sank beside him, exhausted but smiling. "For now. But you're definitely getting written up."
"Worth it," he said.
Then the Hall lights dimmed again — just slightly. A small notification appeared on Yue's tablet.
> Warning: Faith Protocol 2 automatically queued.
Subject: Ne Job. Status: ACTIVE.
Yue paled. "…He triggered the sequel."
Ne Job blinked. "Wait. There's a Faith Protocol 2?"