The Scourge of the Paperwork

My PR victory was glorious. For a full day, I was the king of the city. As I performed my "decoy duties"—which consisted of a leisurely stroll to a noodle stand—people cheered. They slapped me on the back. They called out, “Sukebe-sama, you’re our hero!” A tavern owner tried to give me a lifetime supply of ale, an offer I was very tempted to accept. I had successfully admitted to being a lazy degenerate on a kingdom-wide broadcast, and they loved me for it. This kingdom’s standards for heroism were refreshingly, beautifully low.

Back in my office, the atmosphere was less celebratory. Eliza was meticulously analyzing the public’s reaction to my speech, muttering about “unorthodox but effective propaganda techniques.” Marie was in a deep, strategic discussion with the Prime Minister about the diplomatic fallout. They were taking it all so seriously. I, on the other hand, was basking in the afterglow of a job well done.

See, Author? I thought, reclining in my chair. This is better. A little light political satire, some public adoration, and then back to my quiet life. We can keep it like this, yeah? No more escalation. No more plot-driven. You can actually do it if you put your mind into it.

I should have known better. The author of my story was a sadist with a keyboard.

It started subtly. Edgar came into the office from the records room, a puzzled look on his face. “That’s odd,” he said. “I just finished filing the report on the Giggling Guild, and when I turned around, there were two identical copies on my desk. I must be more tired than I thought.”

An hour later, it wasn’t subtle anymore. A piercing shriek came from the main clerical office down the hall. We all rushed out to see what was happening. A lone piece of parchment, a standard requisition form, was hovering in the middle of the room, glowing with a faint, orange light. As we watched, it began to shudder and then split, like a magical amoeba, into two identical forms. Then those two split into four. Then four into eight.

Before we could even process what was happening, the floodgates of bureaucratic hell broke open.

All across the administrative district, it began. From the windows of the Treasury, from the chimneys of the Royal Archives, from every door and crack in every government building, paper began to pour out. Not normal paper. Magical paper. Scrolls, ledgers, tax forms, applications, triplicate copies of miscellaneous grievances—all of it written in the same glowing, nonsensical runes we’d seen in the vault, and all of it multiplying at an exponential rate.

It was a plague of paperwork. A literal paper storm that began to bury the streets in a tsunami of bureaucratic nonsense.

“It’s a direct retaliation from Alistair!” Marie shouted over the growing rustling sound. “He’s attacking the kingdom’s administrative heart!”

But it was worse than that. A young clerk, trying to fight his way out of his office, picked up one of the glowing forms. His eyes, wide with panic a moment before, suddenly went blank. He looked down at the form.

“Item 3B… is not correctly collated with Schedule C,” he mumbled in a monotone. He then turned, grabbed a nearby stamp, and began to mindlessly stamp and file the multiplying papers, a look of serene, soul-crushed purpose on his face.

“It’s a compulsion curse,” Eliza said, her voice tight with a mixture of horror and academic fascination. “Keyed to bureaucratic language. It doesn’t just bury them; it forces them to participate. It’s… It’s a weapon of mass productivity.”

My blood ran cold. This was my personal, tailor-made hell. A literal, unstoppable avalanche of TPS reports.

We retreated to my office as the paper tide rose in the hallway. It began to seep under the door, the glowing forms slithering into the room like paper snakes. Edgar, seeing a form for ‘Interdepartmental Consumable Audits,’ instinctively reached for it.

“Edgar, no!” I shouted, but it was too late.

He picked it up. His eyes glazed over. “I… I must cross-reference this with the sub-ledger for our recent inkwell expenditures,” he said, his voice devoid of all emotion. He turned and walked zombie-like to his desk, grabbed a quill, and was instantly lost to the curse, becoming one with the paperwork.

“This is a direct assault on everything I stand for,” I whispered, horrified, as I used a broom to bat away the encroaching forms. My sacred nap space was being violated by the physical manifestation of my old life’s misery. This was personal.

The paper was now pouring in through the windows. The entire administrative district was succumbing. Marie was trying to coordinate with the Royal Knights via a communication crystal, but they were being buried before they could even draw their swords. Eliza was trying to find a counter-spell, but the magic was too complex, too alien.

They both turned to look at me. It was my turn again.

There was no time for a subtle solution. No time to invent a potion. This was a flood, and I needed to build a dam. A very big, very explosive dam.

“Alright,” I said, a grim resolve settling over me. “I’m putting an end to this. Marie, get Edgar away from the window. Eliza, you might want to analyze this.”

I walked to the window, the paper tide lapping at my boots. I kicked it open and climbed out onto the ledge, looking down at the swirling, rustling sea of cursed parchment that had completely flooded the streets below.

This was a colossal waste of energy. But the alternative was spending the rest of my life filing. It was an easy choice.

I took a deep breath and drew on my power. Not a sliver of it. Not a fraction. All of it. The sky above me, already dark with the paper storm, grew black. Golden lightning crackled around my body. The ground itself began to shake, not just the building, but the entire district. The air grew thick, charged with an impossible amount of raw, untamed mana.

Down below, Marie and Eliza were staring up at me, their faces pale with shock. They had seen me swat flies. They were about to see me use a nuke.

I raised my hands to the sky. “Here’s my official response to your paperwork, Alistair,” I roared.

And then I unleashed it.

It wasn't a spell. It was just… a release. A massive, expanding dome of pure, golden, holy light erupted from my body. A silent, unstoppable shockwave of pure sanitation. It was a holy spirit bomb designed to obliterate bureaucracy.

The wave of light hit the paper tsunami. Every scroll, every ledger, every triplicate form it touched was instantly, silently, and completely vaporized. Not burned, not shredded. Just gone. Turned into harmless, sparkling golden dust that smelled faintly of ozone and victory.

The dome of light expanded with terrifying speed, washing over the entire administrative district. Street by street, building by building, it erased the paper plague. The orange glow of the curse was snuffed out, replaced by the cleansing, golden light of my own overwhelming power.

And then, as quickly as it had begun, it was over.

The sky was clear. The sun shone down on streets that were now immaculately, almost unnaturally, clean. The magical dust settled, glittering in the air before fading away. I stood on the ledge, panting slightly from the sheer, unadulterated overkill of it all.

The curse was broken. The clerks and guards below were snapping out of their trance, looking around in a daze. In my office, Edgar blinked, looked down at the half-filled form in his hand, and screamed.

The rest of my team rushed to the window, staring at the clean streets and then at me. Their expressions were a mixture of relief, awe, and a new, profound level of terror. They had never seen me use my power like this.

Eliza, in particular, was staring at me not as a lazy fraud, but as a being of terrifying, incomprehensible power. Her black slate was beeping frantically, unable to process the energy readings. The analysis is complete, I could almost hear her thinking. This isn't a hero. This is a natural disaster in human form.

I just sighed, my adrenaline fading, replaced by a deep weariness. “There,” I said to no one in particular. “I just nuked a pile of paperwork.”

I climbed back into the office, pushed past their stunned faces, and collapsed into my chair.

“It was a colossal waste of energy,” I grumbled, closing my eyes. “But it was either that or spend the next month filing. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m taking a very, very long nap"