Your author pictured wasting time in a video game so he can lecture you about his vegetarianism
I have a few regrets after finishing The Witcher 3. I failed to save Syanna Anna because I didn’t buy some overpriced ribbon from a drug-dealing child. I didn’t play enough Gwent, so my card collection is a little lacking. I was more than happy with my ending, but I’d like to see the others. This is a big game, and I’m sure I’ve forgotten more regrettable decisions than most people have made. But one stands out more than any other. One decision that wasn’t a part of a quest, wasn’t forced upon me, wasn’t some kind of Charlotte’s Choice affair, something I just did. I killed 1,000 cows.
Now I didn’t kill 1,000 cows for no reason. I wasn’t planning on opening a butchers shop in Blaviken – although I’d pay good money for a spin-off game which sees Geralt don an apron and slice up various mythical delicacies in a humourously-named meat market. I’m thinking it’s an amalgamation of Papers Please and Cooking Mama? That’s the first time those two games have ever been mentioned in the same sentence, I’m sure, but all this is besides the point. I specifically wasn’t opening a butcher’s shop, although I may as well have.
I was skint. Or, more accurately, Geralt was. I was in the middle of trying to upgrade my Feline Armour for the final time, and those Toussaint smiths don’t come cheap. They’re called Grandmasters for a reason, I suppose, but the cost of materials alone was enough to bankrupt me three times over, and then I needed to recompense the smithie for their labour on top of that.
What was the best get-rich-quick scheme in The Witcher 3, I wondered? I already plundered my enemies’ bodies and sold their weapons, I was judicious with my outgoings, and generally kept a healthy balance of Crowns. Suddenly, 10,000 Crowns wasn’t enough. I crafted what materials I could, bought a few more, and still came up short. I could afford boots and gloves, but what about the rest?
I turned to Mr. Google for help, and quickly found that there was a field of cows ripe for a-murdering. I made a beeline for the bovine, and set about Igni-ing left, right, and cenny. Ten or 20 cattle evaporated. An hour-long meditation reset Geralt’s mental state and replenished the flock of cattle. This farmer was sitting on a gold mine! So I just started blasting.
I spent an hour killing cattle, maybe more, and estimate that I slaughtered around 1,200 of the gentle beasts. Their corpses littered the field, some had even decayed to the point that they were nothing more than little bundles of loot ripe for harvesting. I dutifully collected their hides and milk, and sold the lot. It took a few trips to different merchants, some carry-weight-supplementing decoctions, but I did it. And I wasn’t even rich, I still couldn’t afford all the sword and armour upgrades I needed.
The author pictured after killing a bunch of cows because he was too lazy and stupid to just do sidequests to earn money
That’s when the regret set in. All those poor cows lying dead in a field, and for what? I felt worse for the cows who respawned into a field piled high with the carcasses of their predecessors. They must have seen the fire in Geralt’s eyes as the stench of charred beef hit their nostrils, and all they could feel was a brief moment of sheer panic before they were Ignied alive themselves. It was pointless, needless, cruel.
I should point out that I’m a vegetarian in real life. I drink milk substitutes – oat is my preferred choice – but I do eat cheese, because who can resist a slice of Stilton or a delicious smoked Gubbeen?
However, I had one saving grace. One thing stuck in my mind that could excuse my actions. What if I was doing these cows a favour? Long before I became a games journalist and virtual cattle murderer, I interviewed a vegan cattle farmer for an industry print publication. Upon taking over his father’s dairy farm, this man immediately converted it to a beef farm because he felt it was less cruel. No more artificial insemination, no more ripping newborn calves away from their mothers, death was preferable to perpetual suffering. He eventually converted it to a sanctuary and vegetable farm, but that was his first decision: no more milk.
"You can rest now, nobody will torture you by suckling your teats for your milk ever again..."
What if I was doing the same for these cows? What if their farmer, who kept them penned into far too small a field for their number by the way, was cruelly abusing them for their milk. Was I, in my murderous rampage, saving generations of cattle from a horrible fate?
I wasn’t, and I was foolish to think otherwise. I was slaughtering entire dynasties of cattle to plunder their hides and their milk. If it had paid for my new armour, I could have justified it to myself. But it didn’t, and I feel awful.
I soon learned another way to make money: clearing out the bandit camps in Toussaint. This is not only more fun, but more humane. Slaughtering bad people who attack me with axes and crossbows is fine – they’re asking for it. It’s not my fault that they’re worse fighters than me. Besides, they have no right to take over these castles and caves, and their raids on nearby villages are harming innocents. I have no regrets about letting these violent criminals taste my mastercrafted steel sword.
Maybe it’s odd that I care less about killing people than cows, but the people could defend themselves. They were actively harming others, too. The only thing the cows were harming was grass, and I don’t care about grass. The people were more profitable, too. Of all the regretful decisions I made in The Witcher 3, this is the one that will stick with me for the longest. I remembered them as I upgraded my armour, I remember them as I pour oat milk in my cuppa. They will haunt me. I deserve nothing less.
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