Shift! The Side-Character Heroine

Shang Zetao obviously believed that a mini-card game like Gwent would only appear in an actual game. They were now in a real world. What form would Gwent take here?

Soon, he found himself taking a slap in the face. The tavern was packed with Gwent players. They were even using the Northern Realms deck to play against the Nilfgaardian Empire deck. Anyone who has played the game before knew that both these decks were really newbie-friendly, as there were lots of spy cards in both decks. As long as you had a spy card, you could use it in various ways and earn a relatively easy victory.

Of course, there was actually a precondition to it. You needed a strong enough deck to complement the spy. Not every Gwent player was like Geralt, who could get one card whenever he beat someone. If Geralt won by a landslide, he might even get a rarer card.

In a sense, Gwent was a broken card game. Players with rare cards could easily defeat another player with bad cards. “Godly luck” was not nearly enough to balance things out.

Even so, the big universe had deemed this card game perfectly balanced and had somehow imprinted it into the minds of its denizens that it was amazing, addictive, and worth every second spent. They also carried great value — if you ever had a rare Gwent card in your hand, you would most definitely get rich.

That’s right, nobody could determine any particular founder of this world’s Gwent. It just naturally occurred. An entire continent may only contain one, maybe two rare cards. Of course, these cards would be priceless!

For example, the famed Empress Olivia was featured in a card of her own. She was of a neutral faction. Of course, being neutral was best, as it meant that she could join every side. On top of that, she had ten battle points. Her special ability was to one-shot the opponent’s highest battle point unit. When such a godly card, it would turn most tables, if not all!

Olivia looked rather regal. In it, she lavished on her throne with exuberant confidence. One of her delicate hands supported her chin, while she held a scepter in her other hand. The quote on her Gwent card was —- —- “I came, I saw, I conquered.”

By logic, Olivia should be a leader card. Then, Kaer Morhen would earn a deck of its own. However, it was clear that the old players of Gwent would never accept this. Previously, when the Skellige Isles was made into a new deck, it had caused an uproar.

Therefore, it was best for the characters in Kaer Morhen to be made into neutral cards. Neutral cards were highly favored, anyway. In addition to Olivia, both the cards of Geralt and Cirilla which had 15 battle points were the mightiest hero cards.

So, be it Olivia, Geralt, or Cirilla, their Gwent cards were among the rarest in the world. Any single one of them being put on sale would tear the marketplace up!

Several adventurers hoped that they would be lucky enough to obtain such a Gwent card throughout their adventures. If they actually obtained such a card, they would definitely become rich overnight. However, that probability was far too slim…

Regular Gwent cards were still fairly prevalent. Otherwise, the whole continent would not seem to be playing Gwent all the time. However, those regular Gwent cards were trash, and were often a source of endless frustration.

In addition to Gwent, two other sports were highly popular in this world. One of them was boxing, and the other was of course, horse racing. Olivia’s foster father, Geralt, was a master of all three. He was a professional Gwent player, the king of boxing, and a master of horse racing.

What, did you say that Geralt was also a witcher? Bah, hunting bores him the most. If you said “Gwent” to him, his ears would perk up and his feline pupils would swallow the moon up. He also had fun when boxing or horse racing. Whenever he went to a new location, he would first look at the bulletin board. The first thing to do was beat all of the Gwent players in that area. Then, he would find himself a boxing ring and beat the village’s strongest player…

As for horse racing, of course, after Geralt got himself the best saddle around, his “Radish” started outrunning royalty’s best horses. After Empress Olivia’s accession to the throne, she had hosted a tournament, in which Geralt had emerged as champion. What a specimen.

Of course, after Shang Zetao enquired the guests in the tavern about Gwent, he was surprised. He originally thought that Gwent had been invented by someone, somewhere. That’s what the game seemed to discreetly suggest. However, he did not expect that the settings of Gwent to be even more mysterious than it was in the game. Gwent cards actually appeared out of thin air? Also, the number of rare cards and common cards were balanced automatically?

It was no wonder that the entire continent enjoyed it so much. It was just like in the world of Pokemon. Pokemons were everywhere, and people started turning them into a sport. However, there were very few rare pokemons. As long as someone had a rare pokemon and trained it well, they would be an extremely powerful force!

Just as Shang Zetao regathered his thoughts, the “Lord God” followed up with a secondary quest —- —- “Collect ‘Em All”[1]!

Captain Yang Yunfei was just about to open his mouth and bark at Shang Zetao. You’re digressing yet again. Why care about Gwent? It’s just a card game. Moreover, it was the retarded sort of game where two people competed to see who was stronger. It was just like poker, but far less fun and immeasurably stupider. Even a toddler would get the strategy hands down. First, you had to use your bad cards to trick your opponents into using their rare cards. Give up that round, and then slowly catch up with your remaining cards.

Even if Yang Yunfei was bored to death, he would never play a game like Gwent. However, when the “Collect ‘Em All” quest appeared, he immediately said, “Gwent cards should still be collected. You all have to play the game as well. I feel like you can only obtain some rare cards by beating those big guys at their own game.”

“Gwent isn’t bad after all…” This was probably the only thought that Yang Yunfei had as he sat himself down and got into the game.

Even so, a voice at the back of his head attempted to bring him around to the absurdity of the situation. Here he was, in a Western Fantasy world of swords and magic. Why was he sitting here, playing some silly card game? Could anyone care to explain?

Translation note :

[1] Collect ‘Em All is a secondary quest in “The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt”. Since there is no way (in-game) to check exactly which Gwent cards you do and don’t have, this is regarded as one of the hardest, non-combative quests in the game.