Ne Job: The Intern from Hell — Chapter 88: "Sublevel 9 — The File That Shouldn't Exist"
The moment the elevator doors opened, the world went sideways.
Paper didn't just float — it breathed. Every form, report, and requisition document pulsed faintly with light, drifting through the air like ghostly jellyfish. Shelves stretched into infinity, merging and splitting as though they couldn't decide which version of reality they belonged to. The signs on the walls kept rewriting themselves:
> "Sublevel 9 — Containment Archives"
"Sublevel 9 — Lost & Found (Temporal Division)"
"Sublevel 9 — Do Not File Here Ever"
Ne Job stepped out, squinting at a floating form that tried to flap into his hair. "Okay, Yue. I think this place hit peak bureaucracy. Even the air smells like rejection stamps."
Yue raised her staff, muttering a containment spell. The blue barrier shimmered briefly, holding back the writhing papers. "This level was sealed decades ago. The Bureau dumped every unstable document here — paradox files, infinite loops, lost divine permits… all of it."
"Basically Heaven's junk folder," Ne Job said, brushing off a glowing memo that read 'URGENT: APOCALYPSE IN PROGRESS (pls confirm)'.
"Don't touch anything," Yue warned. "If the Chaos Spark is hiding here, it's feeding off the contradictions."
They moved deeper into the archive. The floor shifted subtly with each step — sometimes marble, sometimes mist, sometimes… water made of liquid ink. Faint whispers echoed from the shelves: unfinished oaths, unsigned contracts, forgotten laws.
Ne Job muttered, "Creepy ambience. Ten out of ten. Would haunt again."
"Quiet," Yue hissed. "Something's here."
A low rustling filled the air — not paper this time, but pages crawling over each other.
Then they saw it.
From the darkness between the shelves, a massive construct lurched forward. Its body was made of torn forms and burnt ledgers, shaped like a grotesque humanoid — its eyes two red stamps that read DENIED.
Yue's heart clenched. "A Paper Titan. They only form when bureaucracy eats itself."
Ne Job grinned. "So a normal Monday, then."
The creature's voice echoed like overlapping signatures:
> "WHO FILED THE FORBIDDEN FORM… WITHOUT AUTHORIZATION?"
Yue readied her staff. "Ne Job, please tell me it's not referring to you."
He hesitated. "I mean… maybe a little?"
The Titan roared, sending a storm of shredded documents their way. Ne Job threw up a glowing scroll as a shield — it burst open midair, forming a protective sigil. "Okay, note to self: sarcasm triggers violence!"
Yue countered with a Binding Clause, threads of blue light wrapping around the monster's limbs — but the Titan tore through them, its body rewriting itself mid-bind.
"It's using bureaucratic recursion!" Yue shouted. "Every time I seal it, it creates a loophole to undo the spell!"
Ne Job smirked. "Then it's time to fight paperwork with paperwork."
He reached into his coat, pulling out a stack of chaos-charged forms — each one glowing with unstable script. "Presenting… the Intern's Emergency Filing Kit."
Yue's eyes widened. "You brought that?!"
"Technically, it brought itself. I just didn't tell it not to."
He slammed one of the glowing forms onto the ground — Form 404: Existential Error Notification. The Titan paused, its eyes flickering. The floor beneath it glitched like broken parchment.
"Nice!" Yue said. "You just confused it!"
"Of course," Ne Job grinned, slapping down another — Form 777: Divine Reassignment Request.
The Titan froze, its upper body beginning to fold inward like origami. "I… have been… promoted?"
Ne Job straightened his badge. "Congratulations! You're now the Head of Nothingness."
The creature's glowing eyes dimmed. "...Processing promotion." And then, in a puff of paper dust, it folded itself neatly into a box labeled 'Transferred'.
Yue stared. "…you promoted a chaos entity into quitting?"
Ne Job shrugged. "It's all about morale management."
Before she could respond, the walls around them pulsed — every form in the room turning toward a single glowing file floating above a pedestal. It was marked only with three stamped words:
> "The Case of Ne Job."
Yue felt the air tighten. "That's impossible. You're not supposed to have a case file. You're still on probation."
Ne Job frowned, reaching out. "Then who filed this—"
The moment his fingers touched it, the world twisted.
Time folded in on itself, and a thousand versions of the Bureau flashed around them — some burning, some rebuilt, some eerily empty. A shadowy figure stood beyond the flickering images, holding a quill made of black flame.
A voice whispered from the void:
> "The intern was never assigned… He was summoned."
The vision snapped. The archive returned — silent, cold, and empty. The glowing file was gone.
Yue stared at Ne Job. "Summoned? What does that even mean?"
He looked at his hands, faint Chaos runes flickering under his skin. "…I don't know. But I think the Bureau's been filing me this whole time."