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 8: "The Demon King's Job Hunting, or the Defense of the Everyday"
One
On that day, Sakaki Yui sat as she always did in the musty basement waiting room, where the smell of mold mingled with cheap soap.
Feeling the cold metal of the pipe chair against her buttocks, she slowly scraped at a Meiji Essel Super Cup vanilla ice cream with a wooden spoon and brought it to her lips. The cool sweetness spreading across her mouth was the only small wedge that kept her tethered to this world as a "human being"—by the thinnest of skins.
Ever since Yui had constructed a system to "domesticate" yokai throughout Japan and automatically siphon up the jealousy and resentment of humans like mist, her stomach had been more peaceful than ever before. Her skin had taken on a healthy flush, and her dull hair now gleamed with the smooth black luster of night dissolving into darkness. Without lifting a finger, the finest "meals" descended from above. She left work on time, ate ice cream, and slept. This was the pinnacle of the modest peace she desired—a life befitting her station.
But the crosswinds of fate never passed cleanly over her head.
"Yui... I'm sorry. I'm really sorry..."
The one who appeared, exhaling not smoke but thick, dark despair, was the shop manager. His face, usually arrogant as he smoked, was now murky as rain-soaked mud, and his hands trembled faintly.
Yui turned her expressionless gaze toward him, the spoon still between her lips.
"...Is something wrong?"
"The shop... starting tomorrow, we're being shut down indefinitely."
The wooden spoon slipped from Yui's hand with a soft clattering sound against the plastic cup. The image of literal "world annihilation" flickered across her mind.
"Why? I patrol every day properly and don't dirty the rooms..."
"It's not your fault, Yui. The building's deteriorated with age. Inspectors came in, nitpicking about earthquake standards, fire safety equipment, hygiene guidelines—everything under the sun. On top of that..."
The manager lowered his voice and looked around cautiously.
"I got word from connections. The police are preparing to raid us specifically. None of it makes sense. We're just a small underground shop. Why would the state itself come down on us...?"
The manager didn't know that this was a desperate "starving out" strategy orchestrated by Kuze Reiji, the master of occult underworld arts, manipulating national power from behind the scenes to prevent Yui's already immeasurable threat as a "demon king" from growing any larger.
*(That woman has unified all of Japan's darkness into a single system of exploitation. If we can legally and physically erase her base—that mixed-use building—from society, she'll lose her sanctuary. Without her holy ground, even that demon king will be driven mad by hunger again and surely expose weaknesses...)*
Kuze gripped his fountain pen before a cold monitor, convinced of this certainty.
But Yui's sense of urgency was about a light-year away from his lofty world-salvation plan.
*(The shop is closing... My safe, quiet hideaway room where I automatically eat... will disappear.)*
Deep in her stomach, fear caused a faint creaking sensation.
If she lost this place, that maddening hunger might return—the sensation of molten lead flowing through her veins, her organs being torn at with bare hands. Worse, her daily regulated rhythm would collapse, and she couldn't maintain her "normal" life, unseen by anyone's eyes.
"So I can't come here starting tomorrow..."
"Yeah... The building renovation would cost hundreds of millions. Effectively, we're closing. I'm truly sorry..."
Yui slowly swallowed the last bite of vanilla ice cream. The cold passed down her throat.
She wanted nothing but to live quietly, troubling no one. Why did the world insist on tearing her from her ordinary days? Yui stood and said quietly:
"I understand... I'll look for another job."
Two
In a four-and-a-half-mat-sized musty apartment, Yui stared at her smartphone screen.
"...If I don't work, I can't buy ice cream. I can't do laundry on my sheets..."
With the underground shop shut down, her income from tomorrow would be zero. She had almost no savings left after daily convenience store meals and ice cream. More than that, she had an eerie premonition that if she completely severed her thin connection to human society, her very existence would slide entirely into the "inhuman monster" side.
To control her hunger, maintain her human facade, she absolutely needed minimal labor and modest earnings to match.
Yui awkwardly entered search conditions into the job site "TownWork":
*'1,000 yen per hour or more' 'Late-night shifts' 'No experience necessary' 'Minimal customer service'*
Countless part-time job postings filled the screen. Late-night convenience stores, family restaurant floor staff, light delivery center sorting.
Yui spread out a resume and cheap black ballpoint pen bought at a hundred-yen shop across the kotatsu table.
Name: Sakaki Yui. Age: seventeen. Her education had been cut short.
Before the "reason for applying" column, Yui's small head wavered. She seemed to remember learning in moral education class that lying was bad. So she carefully wrote out, in awkward characters, the one and only greatest truth in her chest:
*'I will work quietly and seriously.'*
No greater truth than this existed in the world. But Yui had no idea that this pure and innocent resume would soon become the trigger that plunged "normal society" into utter pandemonium.
Three
The first place Yui went for an interview was a late-night convenience store chain near the station. White fluorescent light dimly illuminated the back office.
As Yui sat lightly on a round chair with both hands folded in her lap waiting, the door opened.
"Thank you for waiting. I'm the night manager handling interviews, and—"
Up to that point, the interviewer froze like a literal "statue."
The clear file in his hand dropped to the floor with a crackle, papers scattering everywhere. All blood drained from the man's face in an instant. His eyes were open to their limits, his pupils trembling so violently they looked ready to spill out.
The man was a former commanding officer from the anti-yokai special operations agency "Nine Bureau's" elite unit, the very one who'd been subjected to a "moral lecture" from Yui on a Shinjuku street. He'd had his sword crushed by overwhelming physical force and his carbon-fiber armor torn to shreds with bare hands, only to have his spirit completely destroyed by middle-school morality lesson words: "Please stop suddenly hitting people on night roads" and "Violence creates nothing."
He'd quit Nine Bureau out of terror and transferred to this convenience store's night manager position just to quietly live in the mundane world.
"H-h-hiiii...!"
The man's knees knocked against each other like pistons. Unspeakable terror painted his mind white.
"Y-you... why would someone like you be in such a w-wretched place paying 1,050 yen per hour...!"
Yui tilted her head slightly and answered with complete seriousness:
"Because I want to work normally and earn money. To buy ice cream and milk, and occasionally get discounted meat with the half-price sticker at the supermarket. I won't do anything bad."
"H-half-price meat...!"
Hot tears spilled from the man's eyes. The "uncrowned demon king" who ruled the world from its shadows and had domesticated all Japan's yokai. This god-transcending existence had brought a resume because she wanted to earn wages through labor and buy supermarket discounted meat. Her overwhelming, infinitely noble "discipline," aimed only at honest work—it completely rewashed the former employee's mind into the abyss of brainwashing (echoes of moral lecturing).
"Oh... oh...! What extraordinary, what extraordinary compassion...! You don't exploit, but follow the laws of the mundane world and toil by your own sweat...! I understand! With my very life, I shall provide you perfect shifts!"
The interviewer pressed his forehead to the convenience store's back-office floor and prostrated himself, choking with sobs.
Yui, expression slightly withdrawn, handed over her resume while saying: "...Thank you very much."
But on her first night of work, the convenience store's routine collapsed instantly.
The moment Yui donned the Union Mart green and blue uniform and stood before the register, the street's air visibly began to warp.
"O-one...oden...with daikon and ganmo...one each...!"
The first to appear at the register was a mid-tier yokai dressed like a salaryman but with a head like a lump of mud. He'd heard rumors on the wind that "the Master was performing the ascetic labor of working late-night convenience," and couldn't contain himself—he'd come running.
Merely standing before Yui, the yokai convulsed with terror and ecstasy, leaking delicious "spiritual sediment (negative emotions)" throughout his body.
"Will you need a bag?"
"Oh, oh, what blessed fortune...! A bag—such presumption...!"
Just by Yui ringing up the register normally, customers (yokai) wept and prostrated. Moreover, all nationwide yokai imprinted with faith in Yui through her automatic collection system began forming long lines outside the convenience store to "greet (make pilgrimage to)" her.
Along the late-night national highway, in the convenience store's parking lot, a high-school-girl-shaped aberration with countless eyes on its head, a suited man trailing tacky tentacles, and dog-like aberrations the size of light trucks—all stood in orderly lines.
Each time they received onigiri or Choro chocolate from Yui at the register, they'd prostrate with "Haaaaah!" and weep with such emotion the register stopped working entirely.
Any human customer drifting in to buy cigarettes would be overwhelmed by the bizarre pressure (yokai aura and the repulsive soup of negative emotions) and collapse foaming at the mouth.
At dawn, the manager—the former officer—knelt before Yui with tears of blood.
"Yui-sama...! Since welcoming you, our shop's sales have reached three hundred percent of normal...! But, but, not a single human customer survives leaving the store! The bypass highway outside is completely paralyzed by pilgriming yokai! This is my failing—please, please forgive me...!"
Yui sighed softly while still holding the tongs for frying chicken at the register.
"...I understand. I shouldn't cause trouble for the shop's people. I'll quit."
"Ah, what supreme honor...!"
Thus Yui's first part-time job ended in merely one day.
Four
Next, Yui took on a floor staff position at a late-night family restaurant along a suburban arterial road.
Wearing an orange apron with her hair tied back in a single ponytail, Yui looked like nothing more than a slightly unfriendly seventeen-year-old girl.
*(Good. This time, I won't stand at the register—just carry food. Surely no suspicious people will gather.)*
Yui nodded slightly to herself at her "strategy."
But that faint hope shattered into pieces at the very first table.
"...Have you decided on your order?"
The instant Yui stood beside the table holding a handheld terminal, expressionless—
The distinguished gentleman in a well-tailored suit with graying hair seated there—his true form was the ancient great yokai "White Face," who'd been smashed to pieces by Yui's single blow in a dark alley, brainwashed, and then dumped. He'd been obsessively tracking Yui's footsteps, disguised as a beautiful human woman or distinguished gentleman.
The moment White Face saw apron-wearing Yui, he tumbled from his chair to his knees on the floor.
"Oh, oh, oh, oh...! My beloved Master, Sakaki Yui-sama...! Surely you're not laboring in the filth of work, your noble form soiled, within this vulgar cage of synthetic coloring and oil...! Ah, what adorableness, what sublime beauty...!"
Godly tears from White Face dripped onto the vinyl floor of the family restaurant.
"Your order...I shall take it," Yui said coldly, completely ignoring his theatrical shrieking.
"An order! You think suc
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