Chapter 286 (1/2)

Chapter 286 “Change”

Genuine older brother.

Genuine… older brother, how can this be?

Tilly held the letter in a startled fashion with both hands, her mind not able to focus in the least, all the thoughts in her mind were tumbling up and down like the tide.

Her father, King Wimbledon III had five children. Gerald, Timothy, and Garcia, due to their earlier birth, could be considered as the first circle. By the time Roland had been born, the previous youngest Garcia was already six years old and would naturally not take him along to play with her. By this reasoning, she and Roland should have formed another circle, but… this hadn’t been the case.

Her brother was always yearning for their two elder brothers’ approval, and tried to integrate into their circle, but the only result was that they would often bully him. In the end, this caused Roland’s character to become twisted and irritable. Of course, he never dared to release his anger at Gerald or the others, and instead had come to vent his anger on her.

For example, he had once tried to persuade her to steal father’s crown with him, and when he was met with rejection, he inevitable flew into a rage out of humiliation and began insulting her; it would sometimes even go so far that they exchanged blows. Later, when their father found out about this, Roland had been taught a ferocious lesson. After this incident however, he restrained himself a lot, but his bad habit of threatening her in all different kinds of ways was still as strong as before.

At that time, she had still been unable to understand these matters; but in retrospection, Tilly only felt that it was rather ridiculous and… childish.

The year she became ten years old, she discovered some cut in half earthworms had been placed into her favorite shoes; it finally became unbearable for her, and so she finally decided to fight back. She called Roland to come over, and as he opened his mouth to threaten her once more, she directly threw one of those earthworms into it – ever since then, he’d never dared to provoke her again, and she in turn, had stopped talking to him.

After becoming an adult, Roland still hadn’t changed. Instead, it had even become more severe. She often heard about his dandy deeds, and among the nobles, he was always referred as being violent, mean, and without any learning or skills. To sum it up, he was the worst image of a noble among all nobles. Except for his identity as a member of the royal family, he had nothing at all. Regarding this evaluation, Tilly fully agreed with it… Furthermore, she also knew, that the reason he had the outward appearance of being violent and irritable, was because he was doing everything to cover his greatest weakness – being timid and afraid.

However, can such a person unexpectedly stand up and side with us witches? Giving asylum to a group who are known as ‘the Devil’s minions’, in the end even becoming an enemy of the Church without any hesitation?

For a moment, Tilly didn’t know what to say.

“Tilly, Tilly?” Only after Ashes had shaken her two times was she finally able to come back to herself.

“I’m all right; everything is just a little… hard to believe,” she shook her head. “Sylvie said that the Lord of Border Town is very probably the real Roland Wimbledon and not a puppet controlled by a witch or replacement.

“Oh, that stupid one who tried to grope me in vain – Keke, that animal?” Ashes coughed twice, “After not meeting for a year, he truly changed astonishingly. Apart from his appearance and impression which were still almost the same, I felt like I met someone completely different.”

“Can you speak a bit more clearly?”

Ashes crooked her head and thought for a long time before she found the right words, “I think… the biggest difference, was that he appeared to be cleaner.”

“Clean?”

“No matter if it was his style of dressing… or the feeling he gave to other people. None of it resembled a noble. He didn’t wear any ornament, no matter if it was gold or jewels there weren’t any on him.” Ashes recalled, “Even his clothes were all utterly of common style, they seemed to be relatively simple, without lace, added decoration or golden threads. If not for his hair color, which was too eye-catching, there was almost no difference between him or a commoner, and… yet, at the same time, he didn’t seem to be an ordinary person.”

“He resembled a nobleman?” Tilly asked.

“No, not like a nobleman,” Ashes curled her lips, “Those aristocrats are unclean. Not like a pool of stagnant water, but unclean like the muddy silt underneath the pool of stagnant water. As for him… I’m unable to come up with a precise description, in short, he let people feel good.”