"Get in for now." Su Yan mumbled and both he and Lu Chen immediately started digging the mana cores out of the two zombie corpses.

Qin Hua wagged her tail and quickly dug out the one from the third zombie and as soon as she touched it, the core melted into her hand just like it had happened before.

<Ding. Strength +1>

<Ding. Stamina +1>

Both Su Yan and Lu Chen who had also absorbed their respective mana cores immediately turned around to look at Qin Hua.

"Little White, you can also eat these things?? Nice!" Lu Chen immediately gave her a big thumbs up.

Su Yan, on the other hand, walked over to her and checked her to see if she was injured.

A shrill voice sounded behind them, unable to bear with things anymore. "Stop playing with your fucking dog. Can someone tell me what just happened?"

"Sir, calm down." Alex furrowed her brows and muttered, clutching the knife in her hand tighter after seeing that the fat middle-aged man had no intention to calm down.

"What the hell are you talking about? Can't you see these things in front of you? What is going on? Someone tell me." He took a step closer and shouted at the two women.

Qin Hua immediately dashed out of Su Yan's hand and stood in front of the two girls, glaring at the man and growling at him.

She hated men like these who only knew how to show their strength to women. Just a couple of seconds ago, he was shivering on the floor in front of the zombies, and now all of a sudden his voice was bold and loud.

"Listen, uncle. No one knows what is happening. Stop shouting at us. As you can see things are going crazy and we are just trying to do our best."

The middle-aged man immediately gulped. He paused for a second and then did a sudden 180-degree attitude change.

"I am sorry young man. My name is Nan Zhong. I have blood pressure problems. That was why I became a bit emotional back then. Don't mind me. Sorry. Sorry."

He even turned and apologized to both Alex and Xu Meilin. "Can I please stick with your group for a while? My wife is already dead and I have no one else. I don't even have any powers like you guys to defend myself against these things."

Just as he was explaining, two roars sounded, followed by heavy footsteps and another pair of zombies rushed towards the two guys standing on the corridor.

Their speed was higher than the zombies before so Lu Chen couldn't react in time and Qin Hua didn't use inspect.

She directly pounced and bit the leg of the zombie on one side, while Su Yan once again punched the two while sloppily dodging their attacks.

Thankfully her strength was now significant enough to tear the flesh of the zombie's leg and the man lost his balance and stumbled around.

Su Yan used this chance to quickly finish it off.

Lu Chen blinked his eyes as the fight was over within a few seconds and their pet dog had reacted faster than him. He wanted to bury his head somewhere.

"Sorry, bro. Next time, I will be more alert." He weakly smiled and scratched his head.

"It's alright. Keep an eye while I dig its core out." He replied and swiftly chopped off the head to get the mana core out, which disappeared soon afterward.

Qin Hua didn't stand on ceremony and was even faster than him, tearing away and taking the second core for herself.

Su Yan chuckled at the dog's eagerness and patted her head. For some reason, her expressions seemed very human to him, but he didn't dwell on that thought and turned to look at Nan Zhong.

"Uncle, you can stay with us, but you have to help. As you can see, these zombies are not too strong."

"At least not all of them and you can become stronger by absorbing the cores from their body. So the more zombies you take care of the stronger you can become and protect yourself."

"Same goes for you two as well." Su Yan sternly said, looking at the two women.

He knew that they didn't have powers like both of them but that didn't mean that they could continue being scared and nervous and do nothing.

" Please try to get over your fear as much as possible. You have sharp knives in your hand. Use it."

"Just listen to all the roars echoing in this building. The entire apartment complex is filled with these zombies. There are probably not many survivors."

"And outside the apartment, there are some weird creatures roaming around. We still have no idea what they are capable of."

"I don't know what else to say. This is the new reality and we need to adapt quickly to survive. Otherwise, we would become dead meat within seconds."

"And things are only going to get worse and worse. We need every help that we can get. We can't afford for anyone to be weak and reliant on others." Su Yan sighed.

[You said it, boss! Woof!]

Qin Hua shook her head, agreeing to her keeper's words. She also didn't like others leeching off of their hard work.

This was not a school assignment where one person did the work and others shared credits. If everyone doesn't collectively improve, it was obvious that they would be overwhelmed very soon.