Chapter 524: So This Is How I Become the Strongest Gwent Player in White Orchard? (Requesting Subscriptions, Monthly Passes)

Chapter 524: So This Is How I Become the Strongest Gwent Player in White Orchard? (Requesting Subscriptions, Monthly Passes)

Looking at the NPC in front of him, Song Ren hesitated slightly.

The story immersion of the game told him that at this moment, as Geralt of Rivia—the White Wolf Witcher—how could he possibly be learning to play cards?

Think about your former lover, Yennefer. Her safety is still unclear!

And Ciri—although the game hadn’t revealed much yet, only a brief training segment at Kaer Morhen.

Even old Master Vesemir is waiting for you, White Wolf, to gather information before setting out together to find Yennefer’s whereabouts!

But logically, Yennefer, being a powerful sorceress, should have some ability to protect herself.

Ciri has been missing for such a long time; she probably won’t mind waiting a little longer.

As for the villagers of White Orchard suffering under the threat of a griffin—well, that wasn’t exactly a major crisis either.

He hadn’t even managed to rescue Princess Zelda of Hyrule from Ganon yet.

Besides, the War Scholar standing before him had described Gwent in such a way that Song Ren grew genuinely curious.

According to him, this was an extremely popular game throughout The Witcher world.

Not just in Nilfgaard, but also in Redania—Northern Kingdoms at war with Nilfgaard—and neutral Novigrad, even in the now-destroyed kingdom of Temeria, this card game was wildly popular. Some cards were even incredibly expensive.

From nobles and officials to commoners and peasants, people from every social class played Gwent.

This description piqued Song Ren’s interest—what kind of magic did this simple card game possess?

So, he decided to try a single match.

As the game began, a brief tutorial quickly helped Song Ren understand the rules.

It wasn’t difficult—certainly much simpler than Dou Dizhu.

In essence, it was about comparing strength and point values, best two out of three, like the ancient strategy of Tian Ji’s horse racing.

Before the game, players could build their decks and choose a leader—each commander from different factions having unique special effects, such as altering weather conditions or allowing card redraws.

Before the match began, each player would draw ten cards from their deck—the only cards they could use during the entire game.

The soldier cards in the game were divided into infantry, archers, and siege weapons—essentially front line, midline, and backline units.

Additionally, there were weather cards. Different weather conditions would reduce the attack values of specific card types.

For example, snow would affect infantry, while heavy rain would impact siege weapons.

Moreover, some soldier cards themselves might possess special Skills.

"This is kind of interesting!" The rules of Gwent weren’t complicated. After a quick glance, Song Ren grasped them easily.

Following the strategy of Tian Ji’s horse racing, the scholar before him posed no real threat. Song Ren won cleanly, 2-0.

He earned one card from his opponent and a handbook on Gwent collecting, detailing the number of collectible Gwent cards available across various maps.

He also received a quest to find someone to play Gwent against.

Now he understood why the shopkeeper was selling Gwent cards.

"I wonder if the shopkeeper lady plays. Let’s have a match—if I win, you sell me the cards in your shop, okay?" Instead of rushing to trigger the story with Master Vesemir, Song Ren went straight to the shopkeeper.

But to his disappointment, the shopkeeper didn’t have a card-playing option. Clearly, she wasn’t an NPC designed for mini-games.

"Ah, well, might as well do the quest first." Sighing, Song Ren felt a bit let down. He had just learned how to play and was eager to test it against someone. Besides, according to the introduction, winning could earn him gold coins or items—a potentially profitable side hustle!

He offloaded everything he deemed useless to the shopkeeper, then bought every Gwent card he could afford from her shop.

If he wanted to beat others, he needed to beef up his deck!

He wandered around the inn but unfortunately couldn’t find a second NPC willing to play. With no choice, he returned to the main quest.

After dealing with three drunk villagers causing trouble, Song Ren prepared to guide Geralt toward the Nilfgaardian encampment to gather information about Yennefer.

But along the way, he took on several side quests.

Frankly, Song Ren found that the game’s map offered an overwhelming amount of content to explore.

White Orchard was clearly a newbie village, yet opening the map revealed numerous question-mark locations awaiting discovery.

Now, having many question marks wasn’t always a good thing—but what impressed Song Ren was how rich and well-crafted these side quest markers turned out to be.

One involved a Dwarf Blacksmith whose house had burned down, commissioning the Witcher to investigate the truth.

The process of completing it felt like a detective mode—activating the Witcher’s senses to uncover clues invisible to ordinary people, ultimately identifying the culprit.

The process itself wasn’t particularly dramatic, but what caught Song Ren’s attention was the moral choice involved.

Upon finding the culprit, he turned out to be just an ordinary farmer, jealous of the Blacksmith’s skills and angered by the fact that the Blacksmith sold weapons to Nilfgaardian invaders.

His mother had recently passed away, leaving him an inheritance. He offered to bribe Geralt with it.

At this point, players faced two choices: turn him in or conceal the investigation results.

If turned in, the farmer would be executed immediately.

Other side quests were even interconnected with the main quest, forming a cohesive narrative.

While seeking news of Yennefer, Geralt traveled to the Nilfgaardian garrison, but they demanded he eliminate a griffin that had injured people before revealing any information.

During this mission, Geralt met a Hunter exiled by the local lord.

Through dialogue, the Hunter revealed he had been in love with the lord’s son.

But when the truth came out, the lord’s son couldn’t withstand the social stigma and hanged himself. The Hunter was then exiled.

This story didn’t particularly move Song Ren—until, shortly after, while completing a quest called "Devil by the Well" in a burned-down village south of White Orchard, he uncovered new details.

The destroyed village had been founded by a couple who once lived under White Orchard’s former lord. After a dispute with the lord, they led their family into the forest to establish a new settlement.

Their settlement had even been approved by the Temerian Lower Vizima Court, attracting many former White Orchard residents to join them.

The lord of White Orchard felt the situation had escalated too far, so he sent attendants to persuade them to return.

Initially, they intended to negotiate peacefully—no violence, no bloodshed. But when the settlers mentioned the lord’s deceased son, the lord ordered the massacre of everyone in the village. The woman was hanged in a well and later became a Daywraith.

This revelation struck Song Ren with the world’s sense of realism.

These NPCs didn’t exist in isolation—"I don’t know you, you don’t know me." They had deep, interconnected lives.

Of course, what made the moment especially memorable was that when Song Ren first encountered this Daywraith, he got utterly beaten.

Only after discovering the game’s monster bestiary—which mentioned that Specter Oil or the Yrden Sign was required to defeat a Daywraith—did he manage to win. The same applied later when battling the griffin.

But what resonated with Song Ren the most was how in The Witcher: Wild Hunt, it was nearly impossible to clearly define who was good or evil.

Take the Nilfgaardian officer who sent Geralt to slay the griffin. Initially, he was collecting grain from local villagers. After asking how much they could provide, he even voluntarily reduced their quota by a quarter.

Yet in the end, the villagers delivered rotten grain, and he punished them strictly according to military regulations.

From this perspective, it seemed the villagers had repaid kindness with betrayal.

But from another angle—this land had once belonged to Temeria, and Nilfgaard were invaders.

The villagers’ actions were understandable.

Besides these emotionally impactful storylines, one thing continued to bother Song Ren: after talking to every NPC in White Orchard about the earlier Gwent mini-game, he found no one else willing to play—except that one scholar.

Did that mean he had accidentally become White Orchard’s strongest Gwent player?

But he hadn’t even played a single real match yet!

The game gave him a tutorial, sparked his curiosity—then refused to provide anyone to play against? How infuriating was that!

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