They decided to just continue down the main highway, given that they had no maps of the area. It led straight to where they wanted to go after all, so there was no need to take the chance of getting lost using back roads. They had even got off to a bit of a late start for the day, meaning that they would either have to cut down on the time spent walking or the time spent working out. As a group, they decided to make that decision later, seeing where the group was at. They wanted to make the most of the day, regardless of how it went. After all, their decision to stop could be affected by so many things that could happen during the day. Did they have an encounter with anyone else, and want to make distance from them, was there conflict with monsters, or maybe someone became injured due to some hazard. People in the area seemed to enjoy the use of barbed wire, and that was to go without saying anything about the sizable number of gophers that populated the area. A foot in one of those holes and they were out of commission for the next few days, easily.

As they moved along the road, the gang got up to their usual tricks. It was the same group as the day before last, due to Sol and Bryden still needing to recover inside the Soulscape, while Kali and Maia seemed to quite enjoy the time spent relaxing inside. That, and the capability to do more exerting workouts so that they could attempt to outpace everyone. That meant that Artemis and Spirit were running around once more, taking in as much of the outdoors as they could. They were warned to be careful, as there was a lot of brush and trees to either side of the road, obscuring their sightlines significantly. They did their best to keep in view of the adults, but they were in the teenage years of being a puppy by this point. Their adventurous and rebellious mindsets made them constantly test the edge of that boundary. All this did was give additional mental strain to Nat, as she did her best to keep the two in line since their mothers weren't out here.

Meanwhile, Trooper, Shadow, and Nat all worked together during the trek. Everyone was progressing, and making decent headway in becoming far more capable physically. In an effort to not fall behind, the three of them pushed themselves and each other to keep up some sort of progress on their end. It was hard on them, especially with the fact that they needed to continue going at a steady pace along the road, but they could feel the exercises they had been doing starting to take effect. Well, the canines did. Nat was still struggling without feeling much different, or noticing any improvements in her capabilities. Shannon had told her this was normal, and that it was most likely for her to finally notice subtle changes at three weeks of constant exercise, and that was just the earliest expectation. It could easily be up to six before Natalie was able to discern a difference from how she was physically now compared to her state before. While her current exhaustion and soreness pervaded her entire form, the reassurances that it would all be worth it in the end helped push Nat to continue. That, and Shannon admitting how much she wanted to do things that would require a bit more strength. Some of her ideas were kinky as all hell, and Nat could not wait to do them as well.

Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

Shannon did only light workouts most of the time, but she had decided since picking up Sophie that she was going to just do heavier workouts in the evenings so she could focus on the kid. After all, yesterday was just to get an idea where her body was at, to get a starting baseline so that Sophie wouldn't be in the same boat as Natalie at her age. Nat had taken offence to that at first, but a look from Shannon got her to admit just how little she had been taking care of her body. So, Shannon had Sophie do bits of exercise, spread out with plenty of breaks. Her body was still exhausted from her lack of proper meals, so she didn't want to push her too far. Instead, it had become Sophie's worst nightmare. Well, at least the worst one she was currently willing to admit to, and lamented it coming true with every free breath.

She had thought that, since the world had stopped functioning, that she would be free of schoolwork and be able to live a more exhilarating life now that she was around so many animals and fighting monsters. However, both of her new mothers had instantly agreed that her schoolwork needed to continue. Stuff that was deemed unnecessary was cut out, but that still left a lot of work. English, math, history and the sciences were gone over in blocks, each separated by a healthy amount of physical activity. Shannon had stepped up, and took full responsibility of her education. Not because she had a dream to be a teacher before or anything of a similar vein. She just remembered the horror stories that Nat had told her about trying to teach younger people in her program at university when they were having issues. The image those gave off was not one of confidence and learning, to say the least. Nat was perfectly fine with that, glad that she did not have to try and remember anything from history or English class. Oh, how she hated English with a passion was widely known, especially to her previous educators.

The group was not necessarily quiet during their travels, with Sophie's groans at the material being the loudest of them all. However, the trees around them dampened the sound so much that they were still convinced that they would smell or see any others before they were heard. After all, the wind was blowing southward, carrying all of the scents from ahead straight down into the snouts of the canines. It was a reassuring thing, when they felt that they had that level of security added on. Due to that, the three exercise buddies may have decided to pay a little less attention to their surroundings to focus more on their movements. Shannon had noticed though, but wasn't worried in the slightest. After all, the two teenage lovewolves were still running back and forth, looking high and low to see as much as they could all around them.