Ne Job: The Intern from Hell — Chapter 155: "Clause Zero: Assistants Do Not Yield"
The stamp fell like a collapsing mountain.
A dark red square, each edge humming with primal authority—older than Heaven, older than the Bureau, older even than the concept of "rules."
It wasn't ink.
It wasn't force.
It was finality.
A shape that said: This is the end of your existence.
Ne Job could only stare upward in frozen terror, the weight of inevitability crushing the breath out of his chest.
"YUE—!"
"I KNOW!"
Yue didn't hesitate.
She leapt directly into the path of the descending stamp.
Ne Job screamed, "YUE NO—!!"
But Yue had already opened her manual.
And for the first time since he'd met her—
Yue didn't just open a page.
She opened all of them.
---
The Assistant Unbound
Pages tore free of her manual like a storm of glowing wings. Hundreds of sheets—every rule, every clause, every override, every impossible assistant technique—spiraled around her like a protective cyclone.
Ne Job had never seen anything like it.
No assistant ever unleashed their entire manual. Doing so was forbidden for a reason.
It was suicidal.
Yue bit down on her lip until it bled, lifting both hands as the storm of pages interlocked above her, forming a barrier of pure protocol between Ne Job and annihilation.
The stamp hit.
BOOM
The shockwave erased the oxygen from the air. The shelves cracked. The Archive walls bent inward as if bowing before an apocalypse.
Yue let out a cry—more breath than voice—straining against the cosmic weight crushing her arms.
Ne Job felt the impact vibrate through her body into his own soul.
"YUE—!! I'M RIGHT HERE— LET ME HELP—!"
She didn't look back.
Her voice was a rasp:
"Ne Job… don't you dare move."
"But—"
"Assistants," she gasped, muscles shaking, "are designed… to stand between interns and extinction. This is my role."
Ne Job's eyes burned hot.
"No. That's not your role. You don't have to die for me!"
"I'm not dying."
She forced a smile, even as the barrier cracked.
"I'm working."
The stamp pressed harder.
The barrier groaned.
And then—
It fractured.
---
Breaking Point
Pages exploded outward—the protective dome shattering like ceramic.
Yue's knees buckled. Blood dripped from the corners of her eyes, each drop turning into tiny symbols that dissolved before they touched the ground.
Ne Job caught her as she fell, pulling her tight against his chest.
Her voice trembled.
"Ne Job… I can't… hold it."
The Tier 0 Auditor prepared for its finishing strike.
Its scroll-face rewrote itself with cold inevitability:
ASSISTANT INTERFERENCE: RESOLVED
PROCEEDING WITH SUBJECT ERASURE
Ne Job felt something deep inside him ignite—something angry, something fierce, something ancient.
Something that recognized death bearing down on them.
Something that refused.
Yue's hand curled weakly into his shirt.
Her breath ghosted against his ear.
"Run."
"No," Ne Job whispered.
"You have to—"
"I don't."
He looked at her with a steadiness she'd never seen.
"Because you don't yield. So I won't either."
Yue blinked. Her expression flickered—surprise, fear, affection, fury.
"You idiot," she whispered.
Then the Auditor moved.
---
The Stamp Descends Again
The Auditor lifted the stamp for a second strike—this one meant to pierce even the residue of existence.
Ne Job stood, Yue held in one arm, his free hand rising not with certainty, but with defiance.
He shouted:
"STOP!"
And everything did.
For one impossible moment, the Archive froze.
The ink.
The shelves.
The falling dust.
Even the Tier 0 Auditor paused mid-motion—stamp halted inches from Ne Job's forehead.
Yue's eyes widened.
"…Ne Job… what did you just—"
He didn't know.
He didn't know anything.
But something had awakened.
A memory?
A fragment?
A protocol embedded inside him before his erasure?
Whatever it was, the Auditor reacted instantly.
Its scroll-face rippled with recursive text:
ALERT: ANCHOR-PROTOCOL DETECTED
AUTHORITY LEVEL: PRIME
Ne Job stared. "Anchor…? Like the fragment said—?"
The Auditor recoiled from him as if burned.
INTERNAL INCONSISTENCY DETECTED
INTERN PRIME STATUS: PROBABLE
Yue sucked in a breath.
"Ne Job… You're triggering origin-level authority."
Ne Job felt sick.
"I don't want origin-level anything! I just want my assistant to stop bleeding!"
But the Auditor was already calculating, running thousands of protocols per second.
Then it reached a conclusion.
The text on its face shifted into a single new command:
MANDATORY VERIFICATION REQUIRED.
SUBJECT MUST PRESENT PROOF OF PRIMACY.
Yue whispered urgently:
"Ne Job—this is it. The audit is giving you one chance."
"Chance for what?!"
"To prove you are Intern Prime."
"And if I'm not?!"
Yue's voice went flat.
"It will erase you."
The Auditor leaned forward, towering, its presence so vast the Archive seemed to shrink around it.
It extended one colossal finger toward Ne Job.
A ripple of ink expanded across the air, forming a circle—etched with ancient symbols, orbiting like gravitational law.
INITIATE: ORIGIN TEST
Yue gripped his sleeve with trembling fingers.
"Ne Job… please. Listen to me."
He knelt beside her instantly.
She cupped his cheek with ink-stained fingertips.
"You're not a mistake. You're not a glitch. You're not a replacement. You are you. Whatever the test asks—don't give it what it thinks you should be."
Her thumb brushed his jaw.
"Give it who you are."
Ne Job swallowed.
He stood.
He faced the cosmic judge.
And he stepped into the circle.
---
The Origin Test Begins
The moment he crossed the threshold, reality inverted.
Up became down.
Light became dark.
Sound became protocol.
Ne Job gasped as a vast field unfolded around him—office desks stretching infinitely in every direction, each manned by silhouettes of past interns.
Millions of them.
Film-like images flickered across the sky showing fragments of past cycles: interns who failed, interns who burned out, interns who broke under pressure.
And rising above them all—
One silhouette.
The same one from the earlier shard.
The First Intern.
Intern Prime.
Ne Job whispered, breath trembling:
"…Is that… me?"
The silhouette turned.
Its face was still obscured.
But its voice spoke directly into Ne Job's bones:
"Show me your reason."
Ne Job blinked. "…Reason?"
"Your reason to exist. Intern Prime does not arise from hierarchy. Or selection. Or records."
The silhouette stepped closer.
"Only from purpose."
Ne Job felt his heart pounding.
Purpose.
What was his purpose?
Why was he here?
What did he want?
Not what someone else expected.
Not what the Bureau demanded.
Not what the audits tried to prove.
What did he choose?
He thought of Yue—still bleeding, still fighting.
He thought of Lord Xian.
Of Princess Ling.
Of Manual Spirits.
Of every form, every disaster, every absurd assignment.
He thought of the ridiculous, infinite, exhausting bureaucracy.
He thought of the fact that—somehow—he still wanted to help.
Ne Job inhaled.
Then he said it.
The truth.
"My purpose… is to fix the messes no one else sees."
The silhouette paused.
Ne Job continued, louder:
"To hold the cracks together when the Bureau forgets they're cracking."
Another step.
"And to protect the people who protect me!"
The sky shook.
The silhouette leaned in, voice softer now.
"Then you are not my shadow."
Ne Job froze.
"You are my successor."
The silhouette raised its hand.
A spark of brilliant light—pure, unfiltered authority—floated down.
It settled into Ne Job's chest.
And a voice whispered:
"Remember the Codifiers… and finish what we started."
The world collapsed into radiance.
---
Return to the Archive
Ne Job gasped awake.
The circle vanished.
The Tier 0 Auditor loomed before him—but no longer as executioner.
Its massive form lowered into a bow, stamping the ground with a mark of submission.
Text burned across its face:
VERIFICATION COMPLETE
INTERN PRIME: CONFIRMED
Yue stared, eyes wide and tear-filled.
Ne Job stumbled toward her.
She exhaled in relief—
Then smacked him on the shoulder.
"H-How dare you leave me alone with a Tier 0 auditor—!"
He laughed breathlessly and pulled her into a hug.
"You saved me first."
She sighed into his chest.
"…Idiot."
The Auditor spoke again, this time in reverence:
INTERN PRIME.
AWAITING INSTRUCTION.
Ne Job blinked.
Yue looked at him in horror and awe.
"…Ne Job," she whispered.
"It's asking… for your command."
Ne Job swallowed.
"Oh no," he mumbled.
"I have authority now."
Yue sighed. "We're doomed."
He straightened slowly.
Facing the cosmic judge.
Voice steady.
"I want access," he declared.
"To the next memory."
The Auditor bowed.
ACCESS GRANTED.
ADVANCING CYCLE.
And the Archive opened—
revealing the path to a truth darker than anything they'd faced.
---
End of Chapter 155 — "Clause Zero: Assistants Do Not Yield."