I’m an Alraune, a plant monster girl who was once a former saint.
Though, this might be my final self introduction as a former saint.


The forest fire and the Fire Dragon’s blue flame that is burning my body.
I’ve found a way to solve both of these problems at the same time.

That solution is the Banksia seed.

When a wildfire breaks out, the Banksia launches its seeds from its fruit to ensure the survival of its species.
Then, once the fire has completely died out, it is the first to sprout on the scorched land and bloom again.


I consumed the Banksia seed.
That means I can now use the Banksia’s traits.

If I can become a seed, I can fly and move to the open clearing right in front of me.

There, if I am reborn with a new Alraune body, I’ll be saved.

That would allow me to escape the Fire Dragon’s blue flame.
After all, this flame was burning my current Alraune body. The seed that flies out should be outside the fire’s range.

And once this forest finishes burning down and the flames die out, I might be able to sprout from the seed. If that happens, I won’t have to worry about being burned by the fire anymore.


With that, the two problems that had seemed downright impossible would both be solved at once.


However, choosing this method creates two new problems.


First, I have to be pollinated in order to become a seed.


I hate being pollinated.

When Ms. Bee tried to force it on me, I wanted to curse the entire world. But this time, the situation is different.

When I successfully created apples by generating male and female apple flowers and pollinating them, I had a thought.

I couldn’t help but wonder what would happen if I tried this using my own female flower, my human body.

I could already create male apple flowers.
If so, I should also be able to create a male flower carrying Alraune DNA.

Since I possess the data for stamens from male flowers, I feel like it should be possible to create a male flower with Alraune DNA by combining that information through selective breeding .

So then, what would happen if an Alraune’s male flower were used to pollinate me, a female flower?


Having lived as a plant for a year, my perception of my own body has changed.
I’ve mostly accepted that I’m a plant, not a human one, and that the ecosystem I live in is fundamentally different from when I was a human.

Still, I absolutely refuse to have someone else’s male flower attached to my body.
That is a hard no.

But if the pollen were my own, things would be a little different.

If pollination happened between a male flower (someone else) × female flower (me), then the seed would contain another person’s DNA. There’s no way it would be myself anymore.

But if it were a male flower (me) × female flower (me), then the seed should inherit only my genes. With selective breeding, I could even fine-tune the results.

Because of that, I don’t feel as much disgust with this method.

Rather, it was the fear of what might happen afterward that overwhelms me.
I’m still just as uneasy, after all.

But this was self pollination, a natural part of a flower’s natural ecology.
For plants, pollination occurring within a single flower to create seeds was a completely natural process.
It was nothing like how human reproduction works.

Besides, this was an emergency.
When weighing between being burned to death and being pollinated, there was no time for hesitation.
Everything was for survival. And to enjoy a slow, peaceful life as a plant.
For that dream, I’ll even pollinate myself.


Now for the second problem.

It’s about what happens to my consciousness, and the consciousness of the Alraune seed created from me.

The Alraune seed born from me.
When that seed sprouts and grows into an Alraune, will my consciousness be there, or not? I’m very worried about what will happen.

The new Alraune might be a completely different person.
If that happens, the consciousness—or soul—of me, a former saint and former Japanese high school girl, might disappear the moment pollination occurs.

That thought terrifies me.


But I’ve formed one hypothesis.

As an angiosperm, I form seeds inside fruits.
The fruits develop from the pistil’s ovary.

The part of my Alraune body, shaped like a human, was  the pistil itself and contained an ovary.
In other words, the fruit is me. And as for the seeds, they grow from a part of myself.

Even after pollination, the bulb below the flower remains unchanged, but the human shaped part of me becomes the seed.

I suspect that my consciousness as a former saint resides in this pistil.
After all, I’ve always been speaking from the pistil.


That means the ovary of me—the pistil—becomes the fruit and then the seed.
The Alraune sprout that germinates from that seed has a high chance of being me again.

After all, I myself became the seed.
This was completely different from human reproduction, where a mother gives birth to a separate child.

And both parents of that seed are me.
If so, it might be possible to transfer my mind into the newly generated seed, complete with my appearance.

Rather than transferring, it might be more accurate to say that my body transforms into a seed.
Since Plant Generation allows for selective breeding, I could manipulate the process so that my consciousness moves into the seed during pollination, increasing the odds of success.

If this hypothesis is correct, I should be able to live again as an Alraune, the former saint.

I won’t know for sure unless I try, but there’s no time left to hesitate.
At any moment now, I’m about to be burned by the Fire Dragon’s blue flame and the forest fire.


All right. I’ve made up my mind.
Even if the Alraune born from my seed isn’t me, she’s still my descendant. I’ll leave it to her to live on and do her best in my place.

Still, if the newly born Alraune turns out to be me, that would be the most perfect outcome.


I brought my vines up in front of my face and focused every ounce of my concentration.
Then, I generate an male Alraune flower.

Yes. It was done.
It looked like nothing more than a small red flower.

Its stamen doesn’t resemble a human.
But this was undoubtedly a genuine male Alraune flower.


If I attach the stamen of this male flower to the pistil of the female flower, pollination will be complete.
More precisely, I just need to place the pollen from the stamen onto the stigma of the pistil.
The pistil refers to this human-shaped body of mine.
And for an Alraune, the stigma is their mouth.


I gently plucked the Alraune male flower I created.

Then, with my upper mouth, I sucked on the male flower.
What I needed was the pollen from the stamen.

Pollen is produced in the anther—a part of the stamen.
The anther is a small, pouch-like structure located at the tip of the stamen.

I wrapped my tongue around the pollen-filled anther
Then, using my tongue, I absorbed as much pollen as I could and swallowed it.

In fact, for plants, pollination is considered complete at this point.
Once pollen from the stamen reaches the stigma of the pistil, pollination has technically occurred.

So, with that, pollination is complete.
But, it wasn’t over yet.
For me, this was just the beginning.

After pollination, the pollen from the stamen starts extending a pollen tube toward the ovules inside the ovary.


Typically, the ovary of a female flower is located near the base of the pistil.
The pistil was my human-shaped body, and its base would be around my stomach and waist.

Inside my stomach, which functions as the ovary, lies the ovules.

After pollination, the pollen that entered through my mouth moves toward the ovules inside the ovary.
The ovary then grows into a fruit, and the ovules become seeds.



I felt it.
The moment the pollen from the male flower reached the ovules.

In textbooks, pollination might be defined as pollen sticking to the pistil.
But to me, this moment truly felt like pollination.


My stomach, the ovary part of me, began to swell little by little.
It was becoming a fruit.

Inside this swollen stomach was my seed.
No—I will become that seed.

Within it laid a new Alraune seed. I gently stroke my swelling stomach with my hand.
Then I casted recovery magic.
This should dramatically accelerate its growth.

By this point, the blue flames had already burned through my bulb.

My leaves were starting to catch fire, and it looked like the flames would reach the corolla at any moment.
This pistil body will soon be engulfed in blue fire as well.
If that happened, I wouldn’t even be able to reincarnate as a seed.


I continued pouring even more recovery magic into my stomach area.
To protect myself from the flames, I needed to become a seed quickly.

I activated even more and more recovery magic.
This was magic meant for after I become a seed.
So that the seed that falls to the ground could endure the fire as much as possible.
And so the seed could germinate as quickly as possible.

With those wishes in mind, I kept storing up recovery magic.


Using recovery magic had caused my plant body to grow at an explosive rate.
My stomach swelled rapidly, like a balloon being inflated.

My chest, my neck, and then my face were enveloped by the ovary.

My vision disappeared.
One by one, my five senses faded away.

Ah. My consciousness was drifting too.


I could feel my body and mind being compressed into a tiny box.
This must be the seed.


The ovary became a fruit.
And inside it, a seed had been born.



Soon after this, the Fire Dragon’s blue flames should begin to burn the corolla.
Those flames will reach the fruit as well.

When that happens, the Banksia’s ability should activate.

The fruit will split open as if fleeing from the fire, and the seed inside will be launched outward.

Then the seed will fall to the ground.

My original Alraune body will burn away, but the Alraune seed that houses a new body should remain safe.


But I won’t be able to witness that sight.


After all, I don’t have eyes anymore.
I don’t have any sensations either.

More than that, my consciousness was also fading.

Because right now, I’m no longer a flower.


I’m just a plant seed.
An Alraune seed.

A pitch-dark world gently enveloped me.
My consciousness fades completely.


And so, I became a seed.

***

Author’s Note:

Thank you very much for reading.

Next Time: I Became a Little Girl