Looking at the NPC in front of him, Ben hesitated a bit.
The game's plot was immersive, making him wonder how Geralt the Witcher would have time to learn to play cards at this moment.
Think about your old flame Yennefer! Her safety is still unknown!
And Ciri, though the game hasn't revealed much about her yet, only that small training section at Kaer Morhen.
Even Vesemir is still waiting for Geralt to gather information and then set off together to find Yennefer!
But realistically, Yennefer is a powerful sorceress and should have some ability to protect herself.
Ciri has been missing for so long; a little more time probably won't make much difference.
And the White Orchard villagers being threatened by a griffin isn't really a huge problem either.
The Zelda in his Hyrule adventure is still not saved from Ganon.
Besides, the war scholar's description of Gwent was really making Ben curious.
According to him, it's a very popular game in the Witcher world.
Not just in Nilfgaard, but also in Redania, which is at war with Nilfgaard, in the neutral Novigrad, and even in the destroyed Temeria, this card game is very popular. Some cards are even very expensive.
It's played by everyone, from high officials to common people, no matter the social class.
This description sparked Ben's curiosity. What kind of magic did this small card game hold?
So, he decided to try a game first.
As the game started, a simple explanation quickly helped Ben understand the rules of the card game.
It wasn't difficult, at least much easier than fighting landlords.
Basically, it's about comparing sizes and point values, winning two out of three rounds in a strategic way.
Before the game, players build their decks and choose their leader, each with unique special effects, like changing the weather or redrawing cards.
Before the match, players draw 10 cards from the deck. These are the cards used for the entire game.
Soldier cards are divided into soldiers, archers, and siege weapons, basically front row, middle row, and back row.
There are also weather cards that reduce the attack of different types of cards.
For example, snow affects soldiers, and heavy rain affects siege weapons.
Some soldier cards may also have special abilities.
"This is kind of interesting!" The rules of Gwent weren't complicated. Ben understood them after a quick look.
Using a strategic approach, the scholar didn't pose much of a threat to Ben. He won cleanly two to zero.
He got a card and a guide about collecting Gwent cards, which showed the number of cards that could be collected in different areas.
He also got a quest to play cards with people.
Now he understood why the shopkeeper was selling Gwent cards.
"I wonder if the shopkeeper plays cards. How about we play a game? If I win, you sell me all the cards in your shop." Ben wasn't in a hurry to find Vesemir and trigger the story. He went to the shopkeeper instead.
But Ben was disappointed that the shopkeeper didn't have a card-playing option. She wasn't an NPC you could play a mini-game with.
"Oh well, I'll do the quests first." Ben sighed, a little disappointed. He had just learned to play cards and was ready to play with someone. And it seemed like he could win coins or items; it was a good way to make money!
He sold some of the useless items he had to the shopkeeper and then bought all the cards she was selling that he could afford.
To win against others, he needed to have good cards!
He looked around the inn, but Ben couldn't find a second person to play cards with. So, he had to go back to the main story quest.
After dealing with three drunk villagers who were causing trouble, Ben was ready to guide Geralt to the Nilfgaardian garrison to get information about Yennefer.
But along the way, Ben did some side quests.
He realized that there was just so much to explore in this game's map.
White Orchard was obviously a beginner area, but the map was filled with question mark markers to explore.
Of course, if there were only many question marks, that wouldn't be great, but the key was that Ben found these side quests, marked by question marks, were very rich and well-made.
First, there was a quest about a dwarf blacksmith whose house was burned down. He hired a witcher to investigate the truth.
The process of completing the quest felt like a detective mode. He activated the witcher's senses, looked for clues that normal people couldn't see, and finally found the real criminal.
There weren't many amazing things about the process, but what Ben cared about was the choices available in the quest.
After finding the culprit, he'd see that he was just an ordinary farmer, jealous of the blacksmith's talent and because the blacksmith sold weapons to the Nilfgaardian invaders.
The farmer's mother had just died, leaving him some inheritance, and he offered to use it to bribe Geralt.
At this point, the player had two choices: turn him in or hide the results of the investigation.
Turning him in would lead to his execution.
Some side quests were even linked to the main story, connecting with each other.
To find Yennefer, Geralt went to the Nilfgaardian garrison, but they asked Geralt to get rid of the griffin that was hurting people before they would him about Yennefer.
In this quest, Geralt would meet a hunter who has been exiled by the lord.
Through dialogue, he would tell Geralt that he was in love with the lord's son.
But the news spread, and the lord's son couldn't handle the gossiping and hanged himself. The hunter was also exiled by the lord.
This story didn't affect Ben much, but soon in a burned-down village in southern White Orchard, while completing a quest called Devil by the Well, he found some information.
The burned-down village was built by a couple who used to live under the rule of the former lord of White Orchard. But later, they had a dispute with the lord and led their families into the White Orchard forest to start a new settlement.
It was approved by the Temerian court in Lower Vizima, which attracted many original White Orchard residents to join.
The lord of White Orchard felt that things were getting out of hand, so he sent his followers there to persuade them to return to White Orchard.
At first, they wanted to talk nicely, without violence or bloodshed, but then they mentioned the lord's dead son, so the lord ordered everyone in the village to be killed and the woman to be hanged in the well, turning her into a noonwraith.
This immediately made Ben feel the reality of this world.
These NPCs lived in the same area. It wasn't that "I don't know you, you don't know me." There was close interaction between them.
Of course, one of the things that Ben remembered the most was that when he first met the noonwraith, he was beaten badly.
Until he found a monster guide in the game that mentioned how to deal with noonwraiths, which require the use of 'Specter Oil' or setting up a Yrden sign, he succeeded in defeating it. The same was true when defeating the griffin.
But what Ben felt most deeply was that in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, it was hard to say who was good and who was bad.
For example, the Nilfgaardian commander who asked Geralt to defeat the griffin. At first, he was collecting grain from the local villagers. After asking how much grain they could provide, he even reduced the amount by a quarter.
However, in the end, the villagers provided rotten grain, and he punished them according to military rules.
From this, it seemed that the villagers were ungrateful for the commander's kindness.
But from another perspective, this land used to belong to Temeria, and Nilfgaard was an invader.
It wasn't hard to understand why the villagers acted this way.
Of course, in addition to these stories that made Ben sigh, there was one thing that he was concerned about: he had talked to all the NPCs in White Orchard, but except for the scholar, he couldn't find anyone to play cards with.
Did this mean that he had accidentally become the strongest Gwent player in White Orchard?
But he hasn't even played a real game!
He was shown a tutorial that taught him how to play cards, piqued his curiosity, but didn't give him someone to play with. How annoying!
(End of chapter)
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