Ne Job: The Intern from Hell — Chapter 157: "The Audit That Shouldn't Exist"
The halls of the Heavenly Bureau were too quiet.
Not the peaceful kind of quiet — the waiting-for-a-bomb-to-go-off quiet.
Ne Job felt it first: a crawling pressure on the back of his neck, like someone scribbling his name onto a cosmic complaint form.
Assistant Yue walked beside him, arms full of scrolls, lips pressed tight. Her steps were sharp, clipped, focused. They were on their way to Lord Bureaucrat Xian's chamber to submit the finalized reconstruction proposal for the Cemetery Backlog Division…
…but something felt off.
"Yue," Ne Job whispered, leaning closer, "are we being watched?"
"We're always being watched," she replied without missing a step. "This is Heaven's Bureau. The walls have ears. And pens. And filing instincts."
"No I mean extra watched. Creepy watched. Audit watched."
That stopped her cold.
She turned her head slowly. "No. No-no-no-no. We just cleared three audits in a row. Heaven isn't cruel enough to—"
The lights flickered.
A cold wind blew.
A clipboard materialized from thin air, spinning violently before slamming into the floor between them.
AUDIT NOTICE:
DIVINE DIVISION: CEMETERY BACKLOG
TYPE: Unscheduled Emergency Meta-Compliance Audit
AUDITOR: CLASSIFIED
DEADLINE: NOW.
Yue inhaled sharply. "Meta-compliance? Who even issues meta-compliance audits?! That's for departments dealing with paradoxes, curses, or—"
"—catastrophic paperwork anomalies," came a voice behind them.
They turned.
Walking down the corridor was a figure neither of them recognized — tall, wrapped in robes that shimmered with too many symbols to track, face hidden behind a lacquer mask carved with changing expressions.
A single floating quill hovered behind their shoulder like a reaper's scythe.
Ne Job blinked. "Uh. Hello?"
The masked figure didn't bow, didn't smile, didn't even acknowledge hierarchy. Instead, they raised the clipboard.
"You are Ne Job, cosmic intern, currently responsible for re-stabilizing the Cemetery Backlog Division."
Ne Job nodded hesitantly. "Yes?"
"You are Assistant Yue, staff liaison, currently enabling unauthorized non-linear filing protocols."
Yue froze. "…That sounds much worse when you say it out loud."
"I am Auditor Null."
The quill twitched.
"This division is out of alignment with canonical doctrine. A full rupture likelihood has been detected."
Ne Job frowned. "Rupture of what?"
"Continuity," Auditor Null replied.
Yue's blood went cold. "You mean the Cemetery's timelines?"
"No."
Null's mask shifted into something like a grin.
"I mean your story's timeline."
The floor vibrated.
Scrolls shook in Yue's arms.
Ne Job felt his Pulseband — the little enchanted cuff Lord Xian had given him — start to rattle, glowing erratically.
"What…what does that mean?" he asked.
Auditor Null raised the clipboard. A red seal flared.
"It means chapters are misaligned. Events are overlapping. Some narrative threads have begun to contradict. The Universe will correct this imbalance."
Yue's eyes widened. "By…what? Resetting us?"
"Or erasing selective anomalies," Null said casually. "Starting with the source of narrative instability."
The quill spun and pointed directly at—
Ne Job.
"HEY WHAT?!" Ne Job yelped.
"Interns," Null said, "are the most replaceable component in any system."
Yue stepped in front of him so fast the air cracked.
"Over my compiled, countersigned, fully-stamped form," she hissed.
Null tilted their head. "You interfere with the correction?"
"I interfere with anyone threatening my intern."
Ne Job blinked. "…your?"
She elbowed him without turning around.
Null lifted a hand. Reality around them buzzed, papers lifting into the air, lights bending.
"Very well. Resistance will be noted. Termination proceeding."
The corridor twisted.
The floor dissolved into cascading scrolls.
The ceiling split open into a vortex of shifting ink.
Ne Job grabbed Yue's wrist. "What do we do?!"
"Run!" she snapped.
They sprinted, the hallway spiraling behind them like a paper tornado. Auditor Null walked calmly, impossibly fast, their steps bending the Bureau's architecture with each footfall.
Yue threw scrolls behind her — they were swallowed by the vortex.
Ne Job tried kicking at the quill. His foot passed through as if it were smoke and cold logic.
"We're not going to make it!" he shouted.
"Yes we are!"
"No we're— YUE LOOK!"
Ahead of them, the exit corridor folded inward like origami, sealing shut.
Auditor Null raised their hand.
The quill shot toward Ne Job like a divine bullet.
"Intern Ne Job," Null declared, "prepare for narrative correction."
Ne Job squeezed his eyes shut—
And Yue moved.
Not by stepping.
Not by running.
She teleported.
One instant she was beside him, the next she was in front of him, both hands raised, a barrier forming from sheer force of will and furious paperwork.
The quill slammed into her shield — a blast of ink and light threw her back into Ne Job's chest.
He caught her.
She coughed, breathless. "Ne… Job…"
The shield flickered and shattered.
Auditor Null paused.
"Unexpected," they murmured. "Assistants do not typically override narrative constraints."
Ne Job held Yue upright, shaking. "Don't you touch her."
Null tilted their head as the vortex closed around them.
"This audit," they said softly, "has become more interesting than projected."
Everything went white—
And the chapter ended.
To Be Continued.