Unsurprisingly, the townspeople's proposed plan for distributing the wishing flowers was dood from the start. Every person had their own desires, and every person wanted to be the one to make the wish. The disagreent ultimately devolved into conflict, and violence even more severe than the previous night produced new corpses. But this ti, there was no remorse or regret—only glee as they laid the fresh bodies alongside the other four.
A few hours later, new flowers sprouted from the corpses' chests.
The town had gone completely mad. No one waited in the square anymore, hoping to be allocated a wishing flower. The more cunning residents chose to wait at ho for more victims to appear. As long as people kept dying, it was only a matter of ti before every living person got a flower.
In just three short days, countless acts of violence and conflict erupted in every corner of the town. Regardless of gender, age, or occupation, everyone beca a murderer, and everyone beca a victim.
The square was soon piled high with bodies. The putrid stench of decay made everyone who approached wrinkle their noses, but when they tossed the corpses of their neighbors and family mbers onto the pile and added another tally to the count, they always wore a look of sheer delight.
Jenkins found it strange that the bodies were all gathered in one place to await their bloom, but there was no one left to answer his questions. He was the only sane person left in this town.
Even after more than half the population had perished, the macabre spectacle continued. With fewer people and more flowers, the survivors could make even more wishes. The moon and sun passed overhead in succession. When the seventh day dawned, the last two townspeople died simultaneously. One had their skull smashed in with a frying pan, the other was run through the lungs with a pitchfork.
Jenkins waited nearby until he was certain both were dead, then obligingly moved their bodies to the town square.
With that, the entire population of the town lay here in a disorderly heap.
He stood at the edge of the square, enduring the putrid stench, and waited. A mont later, he heard light footsteps approaching from behind. Turning, he saw the young flower seller walking toward him, her small basket looped over her arm.
Compared to her 18th Epoch counterpart, the girl's clothes were immaculate. She looked younger, and the black spiritual aura around her was very faint. It made her pretty face even more captivating than it had been in the 18th Epoch. She was far more beautiful than Jenkins had realized; perhaps the grim atmosphere and shabby clothes of their past etings had clouded his judgnt.
"Hello, sir."
The girl greeted Jenkins.
"Do you know ?"
Jenkins asked, pointing to himself.
"No, I don't know you, but I recognize your bloodline. You are of a priestly line, and that deserves my respect."
She spoke sweetly, then stood on her tiptoes to peer at the multitude of corpses in the square, a look of pure innocence on her face.
"The townspeople are all here."
Jenkins inford her.
"That's wonderful. This is the first mission my Lord has sent on in the material world. If I were to ss it up, the privilege of residing here for an extended period through a Mysterious Realm might not be mine next ti."
She chattered happily, carefully lifting a corner of the cloth covering her basket. Erald-green vines, like serpents, sward out from the dark opening and surged past Jenkins toward the corpses in the square.
"Would you mind telling what's going on here? I've guessed a little, but I'm still not entirely clear."
The reason Jenkins hadn't intervened was that he had noticed a black spiritual aura on all the townspeople, as well as on the town itself. As they died, the aura from the corpses and the surrounding environnt would spontaneously converge to form the flowers on their chests. And as the flowers grew, they absorbed even more of the black aura.
From this, he had surmised that this was all so sort of self-purification process. Furthermore, after investigating the death of the first hunter and finding nothing unusual, he had decided not to act rashly.
"This town has accumulated a vast amount of sin, an influence left behind by that abominable thing from ancient tis. If it isn't filtered out, the town's sin could condense into a tangible supernatural object and trigger a catastrophe that would affect the entire material world. So, my Lord sent here to purify all of it. I wanted to save these mortals, but it was too late. They had long since beco one with the town."
The little girl explained as her basket rapidly absorbed the flowers ford from the black spiritual aura. Jenkins wasn't sure if it was his imagination, but the sky suddenly seed to brighten. The town, which had grown eerie from days of slaughter, was gradually returning to normal.
What the girl described was very similar to the principle by which the great masters dispatched those strange creatures to the material world to collect Sin Coins. In essence, it was a sustainable process of purification.
"But new residents will be drawn here soon, won't they? What happens if the sin accumulates again?"
Jenkins asked.
"You need not worry about that, respected sir. The material world itself can digest a certain amount of sin; its stability is stronger than we think. Although abnormal events will still occur here every few centuries after this large-scale purification, another incident of this magnitude won't happen until at least the end of the 18th Epoch. By then, the great ones will surely send a new candidate to resolve the problem."
As she said this, the girl seed to rember sothing. She reached her delicate white hand into the gaps between the writhing vines and pulled a single white flower from her basket, offering it to Jenkins.
"This is for you. It was a pleasure to et you."
The girl stood on her toes, holding the flower up with a brilliant smile. The scene instantly reminded Jenkins of that autumn day "last year," his first day after work. He froze for a mont.
"It was a pleasure to et you, too."
He recovered and replied with a smile. He took the flower and the page wrapping its stem, placed the blossom in his mouth, and awoke on his bed in the church.
"At the end of the 18th Epoch, the accumulated sin in Black Town will beco unmanageable again, and the masters will dispatch a suitable candidate to deal with it... Who will they send... It won't be , will it?"
He felt he had grasped the aning of tonight's story, and he understood now that this was no coincidence.
"So, the earlier stories were to let understand what happened in the town, and the final story will most likely involve an extrely difficult situation?"
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