Sakaki Yui, seventeen years old. Her only wish was to greet each tomorrow quietly, without ever being hurt by anyone. However, her daily life—corroded by domestic violence and isolation at school—is completely trampled by the trap of a human trafficking organization, and her body is sold into an illegal underground pleasure district. Amidst violence, drugs, and endless exploitation, Yui's heart disconnects from emotion to protect itself, transforming the very act of "living" into mere instinctua
The Corpse Flower Blooms at Night - "Corpse Flower Blooms at Night" Episode 15: "Lost Child, Lost Child, or the Spirit-Away Park"
One
2:00 AM at the children's park. The pale blue light of the streetlamps stretched the shadows of the empty playground equipment long across the sandbox. Sakaki Yui, draped in an oversized work jumper that had been issued to her, leaned a green plastic bamboo broom against the side of a bench.
Her routine was always the same. Twice a week, she swept the fallen leaves and empty cans from this park. And between tasks, she sat down on the rusted bench beside the vending machine.
"Yui-chan, good work again today. It gets cold at night, so drink this."
The one who called out to her was a hunched old woman carrying the same cleaning supplies—a senior colleague from her part-time job. What she extended from her hand was an utterly ordinary warm can of Pokka coffee, freshly bought from the vending machine.
Yui accepted it with both hands. For her, whose body had become something inhuman, consuming human food held little nutritional meaning. But the heat of the vending machine's warming mechanism against her palm, and the old woman's gentle gaze—these were among the few symbols of "normalcy" that Yui had found after being cast out from the bottom rungs of society over and over, failing at one part-time job after another.
One night at the park, the old woman suddenly asked, as if the thought had just occurred to her:
"By the way, Yui-chan, are you not going to school anymore? You're seventeen—that's still the age for being a student, isn't it?"
At those words, Yui's hand on the broom paused for just a moment. Since running away from home, she had never set foot in a place called school. From past experience, even if she forced herself to attend a full-time high school, she had deeply resigned herself to the certainty that she would only be "kept at arm's length by everyone around her." And now, with the strangeness brought on by her inhuman transformation, it would be even worse.
"...I'm not going to school."
"I see. But you know, there are all kinds of options these days. There are correspondence schools where you can submit reports at your own pace and earn a graduation qualification. It might be meddling on my part, but for the long life ahead of you, having even one 'normal' ticket in hand isn't a bad thing."
The old woman's warm words spread quiet ripples through Yui's heart. There was no uniform like at a full-time school, but there was the option of a correspondence school. Though she had half given up on adapting to ordinary society, by continuing to touch the pure light of daily life that the old woman represented, Yui's methodical thought processes began to consider: *It wouldn't be bad to start studying at a correspondence school, to increase the number of 'normal' symbols.*
"...I'll think about it."
The old woman nodded with satisfaction and said, "Let me go check the trash can behind the vending machine," walking slowly toward the shadows of the streetlamp.
Two
Yui was left alone on the bench, thinking about the correspondence courses, when it happened.
The air of the park physically "froze."
The city's noise, the sound of car engines running in the distance—all of it was completely cut off, and the space itself transformed into a sealed chamber severed from the outside world. From the shadow of the slide, emerging while distorting like a heat shimmer, was a massive figure wearing antler-like horns upon its head and clad in ancient hunting robes—an ancient land deity, a being that had dwelt in this place for centuries, having slipped through Yui's net on the other side of the boundary.
The arrogant divine aura the land god emitted was so oppressive it instantly withered the weeds around it. Yet Yui, sitting on the bench, merely let her bangs tremble slightly, her expression unchanging.
The land god stared at the distorted golden ring deep within Yui's eyes and spoke with evident displeasure.
"Why do you pretend to be such a shallow human?"
Yui could not genuinely understand the meaning of the question. To her, sweeping this park, receiving canned coffee, and about to begin correspondence school studies—all of it was simply "maintaining the everyday."
Yui tilted her head by a few millimeters and replied in a flat voice.
"...I'm just being normal."
"How comical, mimicking human warmth when you are nothing but a transformed beast. If you are inhuman, then act inhuman—devour flesh, feast on terror, fill this city with curses. What is this 'normal'? Your very existence is an aberration."
The land god's words were a mixture of pride as an ancient being and irritation toward a newcomer Demon Lord. However, the moral textbook in Yui's mind contained no entry for such grandiose inhuman aesthetics.
"? ...I said, I'm just being normal."
Yui's eyes were completely calm, like a windless sea. This thorough dryness and rejection of dialogue made the land god's formless face twitch with rage. Words were not getting through.
"Shallow girl... Could it be you are attached to that old hag?"
The land god cast a resentful glance toward the shadow of the streetlamp, in the direction where the old woman was.
"Then I shall rid you of your lingering attachments. I will drag that lump of flesh into the far side of the boundary and erase your so-called 'normal' from its very foundations."
Behind the land god, space split open, and a gate to the other world opened.
In that instant, the golden ring deep in Yui's eyes grew colder and calmer than ever before. Having the "warm canned coffee time" she received from the old woman harmed was, for Yui as she existed now, the greatest possible "violation of protocol."
Three
"...That's not acceptable. That would interfere with my coffee time. I think that is a very bad thing."
The moment Yui quietly took a single step forward—
From beneath her feet, as if erupting from a bottomless abyss, countless black threads exploded outward, covering the entire children's park in a mesh-like web.
"Wha—this, is...!?"
The land god's eyes flew open in astonishment. The overwhelming malevolent energy overflowing from the black threads densely filled the surrounding space in an instant. The arrogant divine aura that the ancient being had spent centuries refining and deploying around itself could not withstand the sheer mass of that overwhelming violence—in a single moment, it was shattered into countless fragments.
"A—ah, gah...! What is this, this mass...!"
Yui's palm caught the land god's grotesque face head-on and slammed it into the concrete edge of the sandbox at a ferocious speed. Before the "difference in rank" of a Demon Lord who transcended even divinity, the ancient god was as powerless as a mere insect.
"It's feeding time."
The black threads that had torn through Yui's skin stabbed Countless times into the land god's sacred body. What followed was a transformation into a bewitching, lewd banquet that devoured the very depths of flesh and soul.
The pure, concentrated divine energy that poured from within the land god's body, and the supreme pathos of the moment it inverted into absolute terror of "death and annihilation"—it all flowed into Yui's throat.
"Nn... ah, nn, uah..."
From Yui's throat escaped a wet, sensual sigh that was unimaginable from her usual flatness. Her limbs were enveloped in ecstasy as she chewed the finest divine energy at the cellular level, and her body arched back greatly. Her golden eyes melted into depths of pleasure completely out of focus. The pride of a god was stripped away root and branch, filling Yui's mouth as thick, viscous marrow. The land god, struck speechless with terror, was reduced to a mere lump of flesh awaiting complete annihilation.
"Haa... nn, nnuu... Thank you for the meal."
The absorption ended, and Yui's back quietly returned to its place. Where the land god had been—absorbed at the molecular level without a speck of dust remaining, completely annihilated—only the mark from where it had been slammed remained. Yui methodically straightened her disheveled clothing and once again picked up the plastic bamboo broom.
Four
The distortion in space dissolved, and the late-night noise of Shinjuku returned to the park.
"Yui-chan, sorry for the wait. I cleaned up around the trash can. Here, today's coffee."
From the shadow of the streetlamp, the old woman returned knowing nothing, smiling as she pressed a can of coffee into Yui's palm.
Yui received the slightly cooled can with care, using the same hand that had, seconds ago, completely erased a divine being from this world. The golden ring deep in her eyes had already calmed quietly, like the usual night lake.
"...Thank you, senpai. Um, about what you said earlier regarding school—I think I'll look into pamphlets tomorrow."
"That's good to hear. When you've given it your all, buy yourself something nice to wear as a reward."
The old woman had meant it in the sense that there probably wouldn't be a uniform for correspondence school, but in Yui's mind, the symbol "normal student = uniform" was strongly associated for some reason.
*(Even for correspondence school, on days when I submit reports, should I wear something like a uniform—what they'd call 'cosplay'? I'll have Naru look for one online...)*
While assembling such calculations of daily life—somehow off-kilter because of her inhuman nature, yet cheap and dear—in her head, Yui matched the old woman's pace and began slowly moving the broom again. No matter how distorted the world became, the minimal peace she desired would continue to be protected here in this late-night children's park, unnoticed by anyone.
(Episode Fifteen: "The Lost Child, or the Park of Spirit Away" — End)
Novelia is an AI-powered platform to read original light novels and fan fiction, create your own in just a few taps, and chat with the characters. New, illustrated episodes arrive daily — free to start.