The Fourth Life She Guarded Me Chapter 16
When I woke, I was inside the Threshold.
Paloma was gone.
The worst had happened.
Her fears had been justified.
I got to my feet and looked around.
It was a wasteland.
No people, no animals, no plants.
The Threshold was supposed to be full of opportunities, yet I had landed in the emptiest patch imaginable.
My luck was impeccable.
How long had I been unconscious?
By now, Paloma must have been going mad with hunger.
I needed to find her immediately.
Flying wasn’t possible in the Threshold.
Everyone’s power was suppressed to roughly the same level.
Relying on memories from my previous lives, I hurried along the routes where rare materials were known to appear.
When Paloma got hungry, she would want to eat.
And if she was going to eat, she would go for the best things.
I remembered exactly where the Threshold’s most precious magical plants and materials could be found.
If she was drawn to them, our paths would eventually cross.
But after I had gone only a short distance, my heart sank.
Rare materials were usually guarded by high-level magical beasts.
If Paloma went straight for those treasures, she would run right into them.
She had only just taken human form.
How could she fight creatures like that?
I was finally, truly worried.
I had never raised a guardian like her before. I had no experience at all.
I had overlooked one crucial thing.
Gritting my teeth, I hurried forward.
Suddenly, countless vines burst up from the ground.
They grew wildly in an instant, forming a dense forest around me, trapping me in the center.
I froze.
Looking closer, I saw that the tips of the vines were all snake heads.
Damn it.
I had wandered into the nest of the snake-vines.
Snake-vines were cunning and vicious. Wherever they appeared, there usually wasn’t a living thing left nearby.
No wonder this place had been so empty.
More snake-vines kept surging up from below.
The forest grew larger and larger.
The first snake heads to emerge all turned toward me.
Countless cold eyes fixed on me.
They blocked out the last of the light.Â