At some point a few days in, Naia also brought out Glen and Gale to train with the others.

The reason why she hadn’t done it from the first day was because she was afraid the three could get dependent on the two, who had been living inside her space and roaming around her forest for a few weeks now.

The Gale-Glen duo was certainly much better adjusted.

Naia wanted her cousins (and Uncle) to experience similar things. Capability was the root of confidence, and she wanted her family to have that too.

The next couple of days, Naia taught all of them about camping knowledge, fighting knowledge, and so on. She would also get them to spar with each other occasionally, and sometimes with her.

She’d also mention some trivia about a plant or point out which was poisonous, and they all had little notebooks and took pictures with their phones to remember them.

Speaking of their phones, they brought a few solar chargers with them. It wasn’t too heavy, but it certainly wasn’t light combined with everything they were carrying, but they just counted it as weight training.

Naia would never help them with their basic luggage, anyway.

Naia would not keep them inside the space the entire time during the apocalypse. That would do them a disservice, and she didn’t want them weak and excessively protected when the world needed all the manpower it could get.

Similarly, Naia wouldn’t be able to be with them the whole time, so she wanted to train them as such.

Other than this, Naia would occasionally take out one or two of her wild animals from the space.

Through the various travels, Naia had gathered not just wolves, but also things like deer and bears.

To say the experience was gruelling was a gross understatement.

Fortunately, even if their bodies were sore after a day of activity, they were given ample rest at night. They were trained to keep watch as well, with the shifts according to their own arrangements.

The following days were like this, and time flew by fast (though not fast enough for the suffering twins).

Naia literally did not help them except for when it was life or death.

Once, they almost fell down a cliff, and they really did! The twins remembered the terror of falling down so clearly!

They fell tens of meters first before they landed on the ground in the space, and they could only cry in Naia’s arms.

Then Naia admitted she could’ve rescued them earlier, but she didn’t!

Wuuuu!

Uncle was much more balanced. It wasn’t that he wasn’t terrified. It was just that he didn’t want to embarrass himself in front of his children. 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝒆𝔀𝒆𝙗𝓷𝒐𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝓶

As for Glen and Gale, they also did very well. They were both city folk before getting kidnapped in Valma country, but they had never been idle since entering her space.

One of the containers included a complete gym. Those two had maximized that facility quite well. Now, going through the perilous forest, their improved physiques truly shone.

In any case, even if their pacing were different, each one was forced to grow independent and their strengths improving at a steep upward slope.

By the sixth day, they already knew how to work and fight alongside each other. Together, they managed to subdue two wolves, earning everyone full, hot meals that day.

Who’d have thought having a body aching everywhere would eventually feel so good?

...

While everyone suffered, Naia took on a few patches of forest, filling up a few acres with various flora and fauna. They got a few more deer, goats, monkeys, bears, and so on. The deeper they went to the forest, the more often they found bigger prey.

Naturally, her companions became a bit more terrified. Fortunately, after neutralizing a few wolves, they gained some confidence, so they didn’t do anything foolish like running away whenever they encountered an animal as tall as their waist.

She also found another pond, much bigger and deeper than the one she already had.

It was not the small pond seen in urban areas, but an actual rural pond about nearly an acre large. If it were a meter deeper (it was currently almost five meters at its deepest), then it’d be considered a lake.

It was not too small and should have its own ecosystem. This way, even if she condensed water from the environment in her space, she wouldn’t worry about it running out in her lifetime.

She placed the entire thing in her space. She felt dizzy afterwards, as grabbing large things directly from the earth did. Fortunately, she had other people with her, and they took care of her while they all rested.

The pond was partially connected to an underground aquifer. The surviving flora and fauna would not lose their water source.

In fact, they had also seen a lake a few days ago. However, it was a massive lake tens of hectares large.

Technically speaking, this was considered a very small lake in the standard of the world where there were lakes as big as countries, but her space—and her—really couldn’t handle it, so she could only look from afar.

It was half an hour into this rest that they heard a dense rustling of leaves not too far away. It seemed to be heading in the direction of the pond.

Hans, at this time, was looking for some dry leaves to add fuel to their fire. By the time he heard the rustle, his arms were full of branches and leaves.

His hands (and his soul) froze as he met with large feline eyes.

"AHHHHH!"

"A tiger!"

"KYAAAA!"

Naia did not hesitate to appear in front of them. It was distracted and was therefore just crouching in place, and Naia took the chance to touch it, as was required if she wanted to place such a big, live thing in her space.

Like the wolves, it did not lose its wildness immediately, but the hostility and bloodlust against her had faded somewhat.

Just like this, she finally added an endangered species to her collection.