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– Roland Wimbledon on the purpose and use of witches.
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Summary
Roland Wimbledon is the King of the Kingdom of Graycastle and the leader of the Witch Union & the last remaining Taquila Witches. His true identity is Cheng Yan, an engineer from modern day China, who somehow wakes up in the body of the original Roland after both of them died. After realizing this was real, he decided to live in this new world according to his morals and ideals.
Near the end of the story it's revealed that Project Gateway's energy had accidentally created a bridge between parallel universes (the Cradle and Earth).
Appearance
Roland has light gray hair and eyes, a common feature in Graycastle's Royal family, his skin is slightly pale but facial features are regular. His body lacks physical exercises. In Manhua, he is usually depicted wearing a grey noble coat with golden outlines, grey pants and a black pair of gloves with golden braces at his elbows. During the Month of Demons, he also wore a white robe with a golden pattern. He doesn't have a single piece of jewelry on his clothing unlike other nobles, it may be due to the fact that he is trying to save money or he is trying to make himself more approachable to other people.
Personality
Original Roland: Roland was a coward and idiot who had no academic knowledge and only cared about fulfilling his lust and personal satisfaction.[1]
He often acted vicious and intimidating, but this was just a mask to hide his fear and sense of inferiority, especially compared to his family. Most of his twisted personality comes from Timothy's influence since young.
Cheng Yan: The modern man Cheng Yan possesses an inquisitive and inventive personality. Whenever he doesn't understand something, he wishes to experiment to learn more about it. His specialty was to create weaponry, proved by the fact that he has introduced various firearms, cannons into his world. This weapons allowed him to destroy demons, Timothy and the church etc.
Kind and understanding, he doesn't discriminate against others, regardless of where they come from, or their social standing. He cares for everyone under him, no exceptions. He doesn't become agitated when someone is rude to him, such as Ashes, Agatha, Alethea. This broad mindset allowed him to bring many talented people over to his side, which normal lords and kings couldn't, mostly due to their stubborn mindset which led them to believe that commoners are talentless and useless.
Roland did not care about what his kingdom would look like after his death. Compared with an everlasting kingdom, he was more interested in the advancement of the entire human race. No matter who his successor was, Roland did not have an obligation to assist him in ruling the state. His life goal in this world was to improve the standard of living in Graycastle and take it to the next level while at the same time unveiling the mystery of the Battle of Divine Will.[2]
However, Roland is also merciless to those who dare to oppose his reforms to advance the human race and to those who harmed innocent civilians and those he cared about. He has no qualms about ordering the deaths of his enemies so long as he believed that their deaths may benefit him or his kingdom. Although he typically avoided the deaths of innocents whenever it was possible.
Background
Cheng Yan: was an mechanical engineer who was overworked by his superior. It got so bad that he eventually died from excessive body and mental fatigue, leading to him taking over the body of the original Roland shortly afterwards.
He had poor eyesight and wore glasses to read.[1]
His intelligence was average, he studied hard but didn't get marks with ease. Thanks to his wide range of hobbies, he had browsed a large amount of knowledge on the internet.
Original Roland: The original Roland was born the fourth child, and third son overall, of Wimbledon III. He often tried to join his older siblings, but was rejected due the gap in their ages. Timothy, one of the main causes of Roland's twisted personality, caused Roland to hold an inferiority complex towards him, Garcia and Gerald. It has gotten to the point where that Roland wouldn't dare to look directly to Timothy's eyes. Wanting to divert his frustrations towards something, He often did horrible things towards his little sister Tilly. and always tried to pass the blame on others.
As he grew older, nothing changed, leading to his siblings not even wanting to be around him unless necessary. He gained a friend during this time named Yorko, who introduced him to the luxury of enjoying food, drink, and prostitutes; although it must be noted that he never forced any of the women against their will. Cheng Yan will later curse Yorko for bringing up Roland's shameful past in front of Nightingale.
When Tilly got Ashes and made latter her bodyguard, Roland attempted to grope her. This almost led to him losing a hand, until Tilly made Ashes stand down. This left a bad image of the third prince in Ashes' mind.
When the Royal Decree on the Selection of Crown Prince was announced, Roland was sent to Border Town, a barren piece of land on the farthest point of the western territory where the king felt he would do no major harm to the kingdom with his ineptitude.
While there, Roland would indulge himself as he always did, coveting local noble ladies and ignoring local affairs, thus causing nobles' open contempt and disdain just after three months there. When a witch was found in the territory, he was asked to give the final sentence. Before he could, he died from a poison pill that was slipped into his drink by a maid who was secretly working for Garcia Wimbledon.[3] Cheng Yan will take over Roland's body shortly afterwards.
Roland's messed up personality was a blessing to Cheng Yan. For the first few months Cheng Yan spent in this world, he was able to develop his basic technologies with little obstructions due to the fact that the others thought Roland was incapable of doing anything of worth. Cheng Yan was also afraid of others finding out his true identity, as he did not want to be executed or burned at the stakes due to being mistaken as the devil's incarnation. However, his disguise wasn't perfect since Barov was able to detect something amiss with Roland due to the fact that he was around the prince often. Despite knowing the prince is no longer himself, he accepted him due to the good deeds Cheng Yan has done and thought that it would not be a bad idea if he were to become king. Cheng Yan would soon stop impersonating to be the original after a few months, since he feels that it is kind of forceful, and he wanted to win the favor of both witches and people using his own methods.
Inventions
See Here.
Trivia
- Some people believe Roland is possessed by God or the Devil due to all of the things that he came up with.
- Due to this they either accepted the Devil/Roland's help or feared him.
- Roland enjoys having afternoon snacks with the rest of the Witch Union and having afternoon naps.
- Roland seems to be a fan of LOL as well, since he refers Lightning as a second Ezreal.
- Roland appears to have been a player of World of Warcraft in his past life as Cheng Yan and has adapted its item rarity system for the items he creates.
- Roland would always turn his back to the testing ground of gunpowder and say that real warriors never looked at an explosion.[4] This is a reference to Cool Guys Don't Look at Explosions cliche.
- While not depicted in the webnovel, Roland is shown doing this in chapter 57 of the manga.
- He loves to sleep late when there is nothing urgent. He typically wakes up at noon to deal with the government affairs.[5]
- He tends to use chaos drinks to bribe or coerce his witches and even his own sister in order to keep a secret or for them to do a task for him (usually with food or chaos drinks).