Chapter 1492: Mutt (1/2)

Chapter 1492: Mutt

The third continent on Planet Vast Expanse was unique among the other continents because it never had winter. All the seasons there were like spring. And yet, on this particular year, it snowed.

That snow didn't fall on the entirety of the continent, but specifically on one of the deserts there. Along with the snowfall, a child was born into the world.

This was the seventh life of Meng Hao’s clone, and he was born into a very poor family who owned nothing more than a camel and a mutt dog. His father was a desert guide.

On the day the child was born, the dog froze to death, and therefore the father insisted on giving his son the name... Mutt.

Mutt was not born lucky. When he was three years old, his father was bitten by a viper while guiding a caravan through the desert. Although he made it back home, he died shortly thereafter.

His mother didn’t seem to care much about her husband’s death. After she buried him, she cared for Mutt for another five years. When he was eight years old, she ran off with a passing merchant.

On her way out the door, she told Mutt that his father had once been a bandit. Acting as a guide, he had led her family into the desert, where killed all of them except for her. Then forced her to marry him.

For her entire life after that, she had always looked forward to his death.

Mutt watched quietly as his mother made her way off into the distance. He lived alone after that. One day, an old man appeared who offered to take him to a place where there was food to eat. Mutt didn’t hesitate; he immediately left with the old man.

He had been under the assumption that they would leave the desert, but contrary to his expectations, the old man simply took him to another location in the same desert. There, he was thrown into a hell on earth.

He was one of a whole group of children of the same age, all of whom received extensive daily training. They were being molded into… assassins!

In the years that followed, Mutt saw many people die. Some were killed by others, some he killed himself. Some died during the training process.

If you wanted to live, you had to be ruthless. If you wanted to live, you had to kill.

Mutt wanted to live, so he was ruthless, and he killed. He trusted no one, and as such, had no friends. The only thing which existed between him and those around him was hostility, and the ferocity of the fighting.

Every year, a new group of children would be brought in. Every year, a vast quantity of corpses would be buried.

Mutt grew numb to it all. At a certain point, the other children came to fear him. Even some of the adults looked at him in the same way.

“Maybe I'm ugly,” he thought one day, running his fingers across his face. He was only sixteen, but his face was already crisscrossed with scars, making him look very sinister. In his second year in this place, one of the older men had tried to force him into performing a revolting act, and when he refused, the man slashed up his face.

Two years later, Mutt cut that man’s head off.

Mutt rubbed the side of his head, where his ear should be. He had lost his ear during a round of training in which only one person could come out alive in the end. His opponent had torn off his ear, but he had ripped his opponent’s throat open.

Mutt's expression was cold as he looked at his throat in the mirror, which also had a vicious-looking scar on it.

In fact, his entire body was covered with scars, but he didn't care.

When he was seventeen, the old man who had brought him to this place took him away, along with two other boys and a girl. All three of them were people like Mutt, who had slaughtered countless opponents throughout the course of their training.

The four of them were taken to another training ground, where there were other youngsters their same age. The same monotonous existence ensued. Three years later, when Mutt was twenty, he participated in his final trial by fire. He beheaded a hundred opponents, causing everyone to look at him with fear. Even the old man who had taken him all those years ago had the same look in his eye.

Mutt didn't care. He just stood there quietly.

The following months were the happiest he had ever experienced. He was sent to learn etiquette, and was also treated by a doctor, who used strange medicinal plants to remove the scars from his body.

Although his ear couldn't be replaced, the miraculous medicines changed his appearance so much that he now looked like a handsome young man.

From then on, he was sent near and far throughout the continent on assassination missions. At the direction of the old man, he killed countless targets, including men and women, young and old.

He cut down people of all types, and never asked questions about them. He killed quickly and efficiently. However, he had a particular aversion to seeing victims who had a right ear. Every mission that he accomplished, he would slice off the right ear of the target.

Time passed. Ten years later, he had lost track of how many people he had killed. However, word had begun to spread; he now had a new name in addition to ‘Mutt’.

He was called Ear-Slicer. [1. Two interesting things. First is that in Chinese “Ear-Slicer” sounds very similar to “Mutt.” You might even say they rhyme. Second, Er Gen’s name literally means “ear”...]