The group of people moved through the streets in a diamond formation with Lu Chen, Guan Ye, Alex, and Xu Meilin standing at the corners of their formation. 

Lu Chen stood at the front while Guan Ye stood at the back. Alex and Xu Meilin stood on either side. Juxtaposed in between them was the group of civilians, forming the edges of the diamond.

Luo Zo and the other severely injured people stood in the middle, cautiously moving as everyone else moved.

In the beginning, many people had felt Lu Chen's actions to be cruel and heartless but as time went by, it slowly started changing.

Because of the mana core freebies they had received, their physical abilities were slightly superior to a normal human being and also weaker mutated zombies.

So all they had to do was dagger the zombie once in its head or sever the head from the rest of the body and that was that.

This fighting method might be so simple, but to people who had never done anything of this sort in their life, it was still a little difficult to get used to.

When the first few zombie stragglers started showing up, attracted to this huge group of people, many people screamed and shivered. 

All their bad memories surfaced, and they trembled, covering their mouths. It took them a while, but in the end, they calmed down and tried their best.

After all, they had seen worse. In front of the cruel aura of the goblins, these normal zombies were nothing. 

With the help of Lu Chen and the others, the weaker bunch of the group slowly started getting more and more used to fighting with these zombies.

They stopped closing their eyes in fear. Their hands stopped trembling and by the time they had killed their fourth or fifth zombie, tears streamed down their eyes not because of fear or panic but because they were finally able to fight back.

The torture that they had undergone was firmly etched in their hearts and mind. It was not something that they could forget in a few years, let alone a few hours.

But surprisingly, even those fresh deep scars already started to heal.

The fear and tragedy that had frozen and crippled them were no longer corroding them from inside. They were slowly fighting back and this gave them strength.

Even if it was just one normal zombie and absorption of one small mana core, they could feel themselves becoming stronger bit by bit. 

And it was not that someone else was helping them. No. They were doing it on their own and becoming stronger and stronger. 

The worst feeling after all that inhumane torture was the feeling of helplessness and frustration that their life was now in someone else's hands. 

They were always going to be reliant on someone else. Their life and death were at the whims and mercy of the other person. 

If the person had a good day, they got to live. If they had a bad day, then they just might die today. How could anyone live like that?

Lu Chen himself was surprised to see this sort of outcome. Terrible tragedy can do two things to a person. It can either completely destroy them or make them even stronger than before.

And it looked like each and every single one of the twenty adults including the elders were coming out on the stronger side. 

Normally, this would seem impossible, but considering everything else, he just chalked it up to the strange energy in the air. 

Maybe the mana they absorbed from the mana core each time also strengthened their will and whatnot. Irrespective of the reason, Lu Chen was truly happy that things had turned out like this.

Though he knew it was highly improbable, the best-case scenario would be if all of their current group could somehow become a tight-knit trustworthy team. 

This way they would even be able to take down strong and powerful creatures working in coordination. But this was just a hopeful thought, so he continued to focus on reality.

Swish. Another ice spear flew forward, hitting the mutated zombie which was becoming slightly difficult for the person next to him to handle.

The middle-aged man who had been struggling with that zombie hurriedly thanked Lu Chen and mentally prepared himself to fight the next one with better techniques.

While this group continued marching forward, Qin Hua roamed freely! 

As they slowly walked through the streets, fighting small beasts and zombie stragglers, she dashed around here and there completely unrestrained.

Her clone was constantly sticking close to the group, but her main body plundered through the streets as the group moved. 

She did not leave anything behind. 

She cleaned out all jewelry stores, herbal stores, supermarkets, hospitals, police stations, and any other essential goods selling stores they came across.

Since she didn't have the dexterity, whenever they came across a gas station, she took the help of others to fill up multiple tanks.

In just a few hours, her haul was staggeringly huge. She had looted several storage pouches from the hundreds of goblins and almost every single one of them was full.

She had collected so many items that Luo Zu now had to wear a backpack on the front, his only free side, and this backpack contained the many small storage pouches.

And more importantly, as she was doing this, she was not running around alone. There was in fact a small and cute reason behind all of her successful looting.

There was a cute tabby cat sitting atop her all the while. It was even tied to her with a rope of sorts.

Yes, Qin Hua was literally using the cute cat as a living breathing lucky charm.

Was she taking advantage of an innocent cat?

No way! She was just making sure that her very first adorable and loyal follower was safe and sound, by literally sticking as close to her as possible.

With the cat on her top, Qin Hua not only roamed around the streets, the empty buildings, and the houses, but she also sprinted in between the various trees and plants.

She visited every garden that she could and inspected the plants one by one, in case some sort of precious mutated plant popped up among the garden variety ones.

Of course, this would have normally been a futile task but the presence of Coco perhaps changed things?

<Ding. Ocimum Angustifolia; Herb used for bone strengthening>

<Ding. Hyssopus Crucifera; Herb used for blood thickening>

<Ding. Nalacius Munchkinus; Herb used to expanding mana vessels>

[Woof! What a haul!] Qin Hua's eyes twinkled. Every single herb that she picked seemed to have one or the other important property.

Running around, strapping the cat on her back was indeed her best idea yet!

Energized by the results, she ran around even faster, looting and plundering everything in sight. But she didn't stop there…

Once amassed sufficient herbs, she returned back to Luo Zu, who was carrying Su Yan. She ducked under the fighting pairs, humans or zombies, and directly jumped into the middle.

After that, she walked over to Su Yan and shoved into his mouth, a mashed paste consisting of the various herbs she had picked out.

As long as it was not poisonous, it was made into a paste and dunked into the poor unconscious body.

Lu Chen ever so often turned around to observe this newest weird behavior of hers but he knew that the dog would never harm Su Yan so he didn't bother to question her.

And Qin Hua as well happily did whatever she pleased.

Perhaps the fact that the cleansing potion hadn't really worked pushed her off of the edge into the deep end that she now started to try all sorts of things on Su Yan.

In fact, she had fed both Xu Meilin and Su Yan similar vials of cleansing potion. 

On Xu Meilin, the potion worked marvelously. She gained 50 bonus stats in all her attributes and all sorts of black sticky waste were dispelled from her body.

This had terrified the poor girl to her wit's end and everyone else who stood near her, but she then changed her clothes, felt stronger than before and everything was forgotten.

Only Qin Hua had the bitter feeling churning in her stomach. When it worked on Xu Meilin, why the hell did it not work on Su Yan?

She was so frustrated with the man still being unconscious that she started stuffing him with any and every herb that she was able to find.

She did it so much that she even gained a new skill [Alchemy]!

Normally, Qin Hua would have rejoiced at the sight of this new skill but in this case…

[Woof! It's fine! Maybe when I level these new skills, I can make better medicine and help this ungrateful fellow. Woof!] 

She gave Su Yan's unconscious body an angry but soft tap with her paw, and then once again bounded into the empty streets to loot and plunder.