Chapter 40: Rewritten Protocols
The Bureau of Celestial Logistics had many floors — but only one that officially didn't exist.
It was called the Lower Archive, though most staff preferred its older nickname: The Basement of Lost Causes.
To reach it, one had to pass six locked doors, three bureaucratic contradictions, and a perpetually confused elevator that never went down unless you told it a lie.
"Are you sure this is safe?" Ne Job asked as Yue adjusted the golden clearance badge she'd "borrowed" from a sleepy guard.
"No," Yue said flatly. "But it's necessary."
They stepped into the elevator. Its buttons were labeled not by numbers, but by sins of paperwork: Procrastination, Misfiling, Redundancy, Infinite Loop.
Ne Job pointed. "Let's try Redundancy. It sounds friendly."
Yue sighed and pressed Infinite Loop. The elevator jolted, groaned like it had indigestion, and began its descent into silence.
After several long minutes, the doors creaked open onto a corridor made of cracked marble and forgotten forms stacked like geological layers. Dust hung in the air, glowing faintly with divine residue.
Ne Job wrinkled his nose. "Smells like expired incense and regret."
"Appropriate," Yue said. "This is where Heaven sends documents that even gods can't fix."
They moved cautiously through the dim hall, their footsteps echoing between towers of abandoned scrolls. Many of the parchments whispered faintly, like trapped memories trying to escape.
Ne Job, naturally, reached out to poke one.
"Don't—" Yue began.
Too late. The scroll unravelled itself, releasing a ghostly voice that screamed:
> "Form 13-B REJECTED! REJECTED FOREVER!"
Ne Job yelped and dropped it. "Okay! Okay! No touching! Lesson learned!"
"Finally," Yue muttered, though the corners of her mouth twitched.
They turned a corner and entered a chamber filled with floating cubes of light — fragments of corrupted records, slowly orbiting a broken console. Yue approached one, her fingers hovering over the surface.
"This is it," she whispered. "The Root Log Server. If someone's rewriting the Bureau, this is where they'd start."
Ne Job peered over her shoulder. "Looks kinda old. Does it run on divine ink or guilt?"
"Both," she replied dryly. "Stand back."
She activated the console. Light flickered, and a faint voice emerged from the static:
> "Welcome… Assistant Yue. Access… restricted. Unauthorized changes detected."
Yue frowned. "Show recent edit history."
> "Processing… rewriting protocols detected. Source: Administrative Override — Bureaucrat Xian."
Her breath caught. "Lord Xian?"
The console buzzed again.
> "Further alterations hidden behind divine encryption layer. Decryption requires… memory sacrifice."
Ne Job blinked. "Memory sacrifice? As in—'Oops, I forgot my birthday forever'?"
"Essentially," Yue said grimly.
He hesitated. "Can't we just, you know, not?"
Yue stared at the screen. "If we don't, we'll never prove who's behind the rewrites. If we do, I might forget why we started this."
Ne Job frowned, then stepped forward. "Then I'll do it."
Yue turned sharply. "No. You're the last person I trust with irreversible magic."
"Which is exactly why it'll work!" he said brightly. "Because no one expects me to survive it!"
Yue pinched her temples. "That's… not comforting."
Still, before she could stop him, Ne Job pressed his hand to the console. The light flared, scanning his palm, his aura, and — for reasons no one understood — his student ID from the Mortal Realm.
The console buzzed.
> "Processing… Access granted. Memory fragment extracted: 'First Day at the Bureau.'"
Ne Job blinked. "Wait—what did I—"
He paused mid-sentence, eyes unfocused. "Huh. Weird. I can't remember how I got hired."
Yue's expression softened for a heartbeat. "You just sacrificed your first memory of this place… for me?"
He grinned faintly. "Guess so. Hope it wasn't important."
The console's light shifted, revealing a series of glowing documents — rewritten memos, altered orders, and one file marked "Protocol Rebirth".
Yue opened it carefully. Inside were signatures — dozens of them — belonging to high-ranking celestial officers.
At the bottom was a new directive:
> "All prior records to be cleansed and replaced under Divine Efficiency Act. Authorized by Xian. Oversight transferred to Shard Court."
Yue's eyes narrowed. "So the Shard Court isn't investigating us… they're covering for him."
Before Ne Job could respond, the air grew cold. A voice drifted from the shadows — deep, weary, echoing like rustling paper.
> "You finally found it."
They turned. Out from a mountain of collapsed scrolls stepped a familiar, half-transparent figure: the Forgotten God of Paperwork. His form flickered, his robes made of ancient forms and deadlines.
Ne Job's eyes widened. "Oh no, not you again!"
"Oh yes," the god said dryly. "You. The intern who summoned me by misfiling a lunch order."
"Technically," Ne Job muttered, "it was a lunch petition."
The god ignored him, turning to Yue. "You've seen the edits, haven't you? Heaven's rewriting itself for the sake of efficiency. No memories, no mess, no mistakes. The Bureau you serve is becoming a machine."
Yue frowned. "Then why warn me? You're a forgotten god — aren't you supposed to fade quietly?"
He smiled thinly. "Because I remember what they erased. I remember when paperwork recorded truth — not lies disguised as order."
Yue hesitated. "Can you stop it?"
"Perhaps. But the Shard Court has bound my name. I cannot act directly." His gaze turned toward Ne Job. "But chaos… chaos is unbound."
Ne Job blinked. "Me?"
"Yes. You. The Bureau tried to categorize you, and failed. You are inefficiency incarnate — unpredictable, unindexed, unarchivable."
Yue groaned. "You're saying he's the key?"
The god nodded. "If the system can't predict him, it can't overwrite him. He can enter their core rewrite loop without being deleted."
Ne Job's grin returned, wide and reckless. "So I'm like… a living antivirus?"
"More like a divine bug," Yue muttered.
The god reached out, placing a fragment of glowing parchment in Ne Job's hands. "Take this — a shard of my original directive. When the time comes, insert it into the Court's core. It will force truth to resurface."
Ne Job held it carefully. "And what happens then?"
The god's form flickered. "Then… the Bureau will remember everything. Including what it wanted to forget."
With that, his light dimmed and vanished into dust.
Silence lingered. Only the hum of the server remained.
Yue stared at Ne Job. "Do you understand how dangerous this is?"
He nodded. "Totally."
She gave him a long look. "…Define 'totally.'"
He grinned sheepishly. "Like… forty percent?"
Yue sighed. "Good enough."
As they turned to leave, the walls around them began to tremble. The corrupted scrolls pulsed with new light. The system had detected unauthorized access.
> "Alert. Intrusion detected. Initiating rewrite rollback."
The elevator at the far end sealed shut. The air shimmered. Reality itself started to bend — documents rewriting midair, phrases rearranging.
Ne Job shouted over the chaos, "Uh, Yue?! The paperwork's moving!"
"Run!" she ordered. "Before the system erases us!"
They sprinted through collapsing corridors of data and divine law, chased by rewriting forms that tried to overwrite their names. One parchment briefly latched onto Ne Job's sleeve, attempting to rename him "Administrative Error #7."
He tore it off, panting. "No thanks! Already taken!"
As they dove through a half-closing gate, Yue looked back one last time — seeing the Lower Archive swallowed by light, sealed away once more.
When the silence finally returned, they stood in a quiet maintenance corridor above ground.
Ne Job grinned weakly. "So… small win?"
Yue glanced at the glowing shard in his hands. "Small… for now. But the real battle's upstairs."
She looked up toward the golden tower of the Bureau, its spires gleaming faintly — like polished lies pretending to be justice.
Yue clenched her fists. "It's time the Shard Court learned what inefficiency really looks like."
Ne Job saluted. "Operation: Chaos Audit?"
She smirked. "Approved."