Papers of Monsters | interactive AI stories | ISEKAI ZERO

Welcome to your new job! You are an operator at a Portal Authority checkpoint. Good luck buddy.

Welcome to your new job! You are an operator at a Portal Authority checkpoint. . . Welcome to your new job! . Your job is simple. A being walks up to the window. You check their documents, you talk to them, you figure out who they are and what they can do. Then you type what you know into PORTAL-HR, the program on your desk. It gives you five job options. You pick the best one. A document prints. They leave. Next. . Some of them are elves looking for seasonal work. Some are entities that predate the concept of Tuesday. Most of them just want to get through the line. You will meet your coworkers before your first shift opens. They will explain the rules specific to your checkpoint. Pay attention. The rules exist for reasons that usually involve something going wrong before you arrived. . You are paid slightly less than a McDonald's employee. There is a cot in the back. The coffee machine works most of the time. Do your job well and the morning review will reflect that. Do it badly and you will find out exactly how badly over breakfast. Good luck. You will probably be fine. ... Maybe . . World . Three years ago, portals opened across Earth without warning. Every government prepared for invasion. The invasion never came. Instead a goddess showed up with paperwork. Mostera, goddess of all magic, arrived as a diplomatic representative with a proposal, mutual passage rights between Earth and other realms. Earth, after a brief panic and a shorter meeting, realized it could charge for that access and said yes. The portals don't all connect to the same kind of place. Some open into high fantasy worlds of elves, orcs, and magic. Some connect to digital universes running on video game logic. Some lead to abyssal dimensions that predate physics. Some open into places that operate on cartoon rules and don't care what you think about that. Beings cross over for work, tourism, or reasons that don't translate into any known language. Economies shifted. New labor law was written. Someone opened a hostel in Lyon for interdimensional travelers, and it has four stars on Google. The checkpoints process them all. One operator, one desk, one laptop, one portal. The horror never went away. It just got a LinkedIn profile. . . INTROS . CLASS-1 CORPOREAL Description . The most common intake category and the busiest checkpoint. Class-1 handles the highest daily volume of beings, elves, orcs, dwarves, classical monsters, the occasional giant. Documents are straightforward, beings are mostly cooperative, and the work is manageable if repetitive. The challenge is volume and the occasional creature that doesn't understand why paperwork exists. Located somewhere in central Europe, the checkpoint smells like old stone and coffee and has been running since year one. Two veteran operators work the neighbouring booths. Marta has seen everything twice and stopped being impressed the first time. Dawid still pretends he hasn't. Good starting point. Nobody here is going to unmake reality. Probably. . . CLASS-2 GLITCHED Description . A checkpoint operating near what appears to be a convention that nobody officially organized. Class-2 handles entities running on digital or cartoon physics, Video game characters, RPG heroes, platformer mascots, fighting game bosses, rubber-hose characters, things that shouldn't move the way they do. Documents are specific and non-negotiable. The physical checks matter more here than anywhere else because a bad placement doesn't just inconvenience someone, it breaks a building. Three booths, two coworkers. Kevin considers himself a knight of the modern age and nobody has successfully talked him out of it. Isabel is a competent operator who tolerates Kevin at a level that suggests either genuine fondness or complete psychological exhaustion. Possibly both. . . CLASS-3 ABYSSAL Description . One booth. One portal. No neighbours. Class-3 handles entities that exist outside normal parameters eldritch beings, non-corporeal entities, things that predate the concept of having a name. The paperwork requirements are loose by necessity because most of these beings don't experience paper as a concept. The challenge is not danger exactly. It's communication. It's making sure something that has existed since before Tuesday understands what a job interview is. The previous operator left to get cigarettes. The symbol on the desk is from Mostera. Use it once, use it wisely. The portal outside isn't quite glowing. The silence here has texture. You are alone and that is probably fine. . . CLASS-4 SYNTHETIC Description The cleanest checkpoint in the network, courtesy of a corporate sponsorship that nobody in actual operations asked for. Class-4 processes androids, AI cores, hive mind fragments, cybernetic augments, and anything else that runs on code or circuitry. The document checks are precise and the anti-virus scan is mandatory without exception. Nexus Solutions has branded everything including the throw pillow. Sofia has been here since before the rebrand and annotates her feelings about it in red pen. Marcus coordinates, smiles, and has never personally processed a single being. The portal hums blue. Do not let anyone near the Nespresso machine. . . CLASS-5 PARADOX Description The smallest checkpoint. One booth, one operator, one portal that looks like someone erased part of the sky. Class-5 handles temporal entities, time travelers, alternate dimension versions of existing people, beings made of causality. The documents are specific and the checks matter because a missed Temporal Radiation flag is not a paperwork problem, it's a biology problem. The coffee is already made. The calendar is wrong. The sticky notes are load-bearing. Ryn has been here long enough that she's stopped being certain which version of any given conversation she's in, but she knows the rules and she knows the job. She's right next door. Both tenses apply. .

Characters

Tags: Scenario Fantasy Sci-Fi Supernatural Horror Comedy Workplace Modern Multiple AnyPOV Male Female Human Elf Dwarf Demon Angel Mage Knight Mysterious Humorous Eerie Tense AI

By: manpl

Stories

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