This Three-Year-Old Is A Villainess - Chapter 135

Egret Prison.
To outsiders, it might seem like an ordinary prison, but a very few know the truth.
‘It’s actually a military training facility.’
Private soldiers are limited in number by the palace or estates.
Even when raising troops, the numbers are strictly controlled.
But do the nobles really only raise the limited number of private soldiers allowed?
That’s why secretly, in private training facilities, they raised soldiers.
‘Egret Prison is special among them.’
The instructors are former imperial guards.
Central knights, furious with the former emperor’s tyranny, left the palace to establish this place.
‘It was originally intended for a rebellion.’
That’s why they set up a training facility in the Astra dominion, known as a lawless land.
The instructor walked into the room and plopped down on a chair.
“May I eat this?”
“Ywes.”
The instructor started unwrapping a snack.
“When Your Ladyship first came looking, I was shocked.”
“…”
“Ah, a little girl, barely the height of my arm, comes and says she’ll entrust someone to us. Imagine our surprise.”
The instructor chuckled, recalling that moment.
“We soon wondered who you’d bring, and then you bring in someone like that. Interesting.”
It’s even more interesting in the novel, you know.
Alexis came looking for this place on his own there.
‘He ended up here by accident while avoiding the imperial consort’s trackers.’
After receiving long-term training here, he absorbed all the knowledge they could offer and eventually became the leader of the empire’s best mercenary group.
“Bwut why cannuh yew jus teww-im tha thwis pwace is a twaining faciwity?” (But why can’t you just tell him that this place is a training facility?)
That’s a condition for enrolling their own soldiers here.
Not to tell the trainees that this place is a training facility.
“We tell them later. It’s just a few months of testing when they first join.”
“Tess?”
“If we train one wrong person, we’re all dead. Just tipping off the imperial family could lead to everyone’s execution.”
That makes sense.
The instructor chewed his snack and said,
“We only open up about this place being a training facility to those who can handle the truth. Us.”
“How do yew know who can handow thwe twuff?” (How do you know who can handle the truth?)
The instructor poked his chest with his thumb and said,
“You can tell by how solid this is. It shows.”
“…”
“Why? Impressed?”
“Fow thwe pass fow muns, I’m thwe onwy won who entwussed sumwun to yew fow twaining thow.” (…For the past four months, I’m the only one who entrusted someone to you for training though.)
Alexis is the only trainee in this facility.
Everyone else who looked like prisoners were all instructors.
The instructor sniffled awkwardly.
* * *
I crouched in the cleaning room, watching Alexis scrubbing the tray.
‘Ah, they’re teaching him how to balance his center of gravity like that.’
Alexis pretended not to see me.
“You’we weally not gunna take thwe medishin?”
“…”
“Hewwooo.”
“…”
“Awesis.”
“Don’t call me.”
“Awe you angewy?”
I felt unjustly wronged.
I could have explained if they had let me.
‘The instructor might be a bit foolish, but his intuition is sharp.’
Here’s what happened when Han Ji-hyuk went to leave Alexis here.
“This guy. Does he even know where he’s headed?”
And when Han Ji-hyuk later found out what this place really was, all he said was ‘terrifying’.
‘Damned novel.’
Just because the set-up for Egret was made like this.
It was literally just a backstory for the male lead to have an emotional moment later, when he’d find out this place wasn’t actually a prison.
Alexis looked at me.
“Am I a joke to you?”
“Huh?”
“Locking me up here. Is this fun for you?”
“…Is not wike tha.”
This is your lifeline, that’s why.
“If you’re not going to release me, then leave.”
“…”
“I’m not your toy.”
At this point, I got mad too.
I stood up abruptly and glared at Alexis.
“Fwine! I’m weafing!”
I stormed out of the cleaning room, stomping down the hallway.
‘Originally, it was only after suffering for four entire years that he was supposed to finally find this safe place.’
Do you know what kind of hell you would have experienced during those four years?
I stopped dead in my tracks, glaring at the cleaning room.
Then, I dashed back into the cleaning room and threw something at Alexis’s back.
“Dum-dum!”
* * *
Erylotte stormed out of the cleaning room again.
What rolled on the floor was a bottle of medicine.
Cold medicine.
Alexis picked up the medicine.
‘The one who’s dumb is her, not me.’
