hell is dark with no flowers 1 by yoru michio (trans. taylor engel)

I understand that this is a thriller and that's why the story beats are the way they are, but I don't particularly like it. The epilogue chapter impressed me a little by departing from this, but overall, I found the humor in the writing style to be very poor and the atmosphere not particularly memorable. I do think it was better than Yami-Hara, another Yen On light novel with a similar premise. But why are there multiple novels using supernatural elements as window dressing on a banal tale about the dark side of mundane life? What are stories like these trying to say about "normies" in the first place?