The Army arrived in Taft at precisely 7:00 AM.

When the sphere of blue light faded from the warp gate, it left behind Yurielle, Corbatz, and four other players in dark sea-green Army uniforms and heavy plate armor. As soon as they stepped down from the dais, the teleportation effect reappeared and deposited another six of their guildmates where the first group had stood moments before.

Camilla and I both bowed to Yurielle as she approached; she reciprocated, locks of her bangs drawing a silver curtain across her face as she did. Word had spread overnight amongst the residents of Taft about what to expect, and already a number of players had begun gathering around the warp gate at the sight of the heavily-armed groups, a mixture of curiosity and apprehension in the voices that muttered and whispered back and forth.

Following a crisp order from Yurielle, the second Army group that had warped in began marching off towards the woods. Once a large enough crowd had gathered, Yurielle stepped forward and raised her voice. I started slightly in surprise; her normal conversational style had been quiet and restrained when we met, but it took on a strength I hadn't expected from her when she projected in order to be heard by everyone present.

"People of Taft! I am Yurielle, second in command of the clearing guild all of you will know as the Army. We've received reports of a bandit epidemic plaguing this floor. By order of our leader, we intend to take all necessary actions to preserve public order and player safety." I doubted her brief pause then was to allow anyone to raise questions or comments—more likely it was intended to give them a few moments to let her introduction sink in.

"In aid of this, I ask all of you to bring word to everyone you know living or adventuring on this floor, and deliver to them our three promises. First: that Taft and the surrounding area are currently under our protection. The unit I just dispatched will begin patrolling the roads through the Taftwood, and it is one of at least two parties which will be patrolling this floor daily, giving aid to any who require it."

It was no small boast. I looked around at the locals to gauge their reactions, and saw more than a few rays of hope in the expressions of the assembled players. A pair stood out to me as they elbowed each other and grinned.

"Second: that any players who are willing to join us in our fight to maintain order and clear this game will be welcomed into our guild—and will receive access to the same training, equipment and resources available to all other new recruits."

That one got some attention. I wasn't surprised—despite their fall from glory after the 25th floor raid, the Army still commanded an impressive reputation amongst lower-level players, and the prospect of possibly joining that guild and becoming an elite clearer had to appeal to some of the players local to this floor.

But Yurielle wasn't done—there was still one promise to make. "Third: that we will begin organizing and training a volunteer militia that will help the players of this floor reclaim it from the bandits and keep it that way. I'm sure there will be many who want to help rid this floor of criminal players but don't wish to join our guild—this is your opportunity to make a difference."

By this point there was a loud buzz rising and falling within the crowd as dozens of muted conversations quietly overlapped. I tried to pick out anything understandable, but for the most part it was a muddle of apprehension and tentative hope.

Silence stretched on for several seconds after that. I wasn't sure what Yurielle intended or expected from the crowd—applause? Cheers? There was scattered clapping and several players made a point of stepping forward and bowing respectfully, but Taft was a town that had been cowed by the bandit problem for weeks now—most players seemed to be taking a sensible "wait and see" approach to these announcements.

Sensing that no more announcements were forthcoming, the crowd started to disperse. Several players approached Yurielle and asked for more information about joining her guild; Camilla and I waited until she'd sent them back to the first floor before broaching the topic of finding some way for my wife to contribute.

"It's not out of the question," Yurielle said, visibly mulling over the idea. "We partner up with others all the time when we're clearing floor bosses." Then her face fell a little. "At least, we did. Yes, we'd be happy to have either of you along to help—you brought us word of the problem, after all."

"I'll mostly be sitting that part out," I explained. "Camilla and I are a great team when it comes to PvM combat, but my character build isn't all that suited for PvP. I did have an idea, though." Yurielle gestured for me to go on. "When we captured that first group of bandits, Camilla had the great thought of signaling for help with this cheap little whistle she bought from the NPC instrument vendor. If you have the funds in your guild treasury, it might not be a bad idea to distribute whistles to the groups and solo players adventuring on this floor—tell them that if the Army hears that whistle, they'll know it means a bandit attack."

I caught Camilla giving me an astonished look out of the corner of my eye. While Yurielle closed her eyes and hummed thoughtfully, I turned slightly and winked, drawing a smile from my wife.

"We'd be happy to chip in and help fund them," she added after a moment, looking at me significantly and getting a nod in response.

Yurielle opened her eyes and looked between the two of us. "I think it's an excellent idea. I'll send a message to Thinker while I'm here and see what he has to say." She smiled. "Are you sure you two wouldn't reconsider signing up with the other recruits? I know he'd say yes to that in a moment; he loved your idea of raising a militia here and training players to help themselves. You like to help people, and that's all he's ever wanted."

When we both shook our heads, she inclined hers. "Very well. We're grateful for any help you can offer."

The "Army" may have only been a nickname for a guild that was technically still named MTD, but they ran their guild like one, getting an early start to things. Yurielle told Camilla to set her wakeup alarm for 5:45 the next morning, and I caught myself grinning under the bedsheets as my wife—not the most gracious of souls at that kind of hour or when first awoken—grumped her way downstairs in search of breakfast, trailing pungent opinions about exactly what players the Army expected to be out at that hour. I got a message a little while later telling me that they were off to patrol the Taftwood and hunt for the bandit lair there.

Going to be a full day, she wrote. We're going to stop for lunch at some town called Riegess, cross the Glimmerbrook, and circle around to the bridge at the base of the Foothills before returning sometime this afternoon. At least, that's the plan—you know how that goes. You might want to find a library. Love you!

In other words, I was in for a day of excruciating boredom. I fired off a quick reply wishing her luck, but when I realized I wasn't going to be getting back to sleep, I dragged myself out of bed and decided to make the best of this idle time by exploring Taft.

That wasn't saying much. Despite being the largest settlement on the 11th floor, Taft was tiny by the standards I was used to in Chiba—like most of the towns in Aincrad, the word "town" was being generous. At most there were maybe a thousand residents in total, the majority of them NPCs. Despite that, I knew there had to be quests in the city we hadn't found yet, so if nothing else it was worth looking.

Unfortunately the only quests I came across were hunting quests—that is, go and kill X number of mobs of a specific type. Sometimes just killing them was enough to update your quest log; for others you had to bring back an item as proof, usually something that didn't drop every time. I wasn't going to be clearing those quests by myself, so I set them aside and made a note to bring Camilla to the quest givers once she got back so that we could do them together.

But when my wife finally returned that afternoon, she looked worn down and was in no mood to go picking up quests. "Save those," she said as she waved goodbye to Yurielle's group. "I've been on my feet all day, and right now I just want to go sit down somewhere and not get up for a while."

"You wanted to do this," I observed, carefully keeping my tone neutral as we headed towards the inn where we were staying. "So how did it go?"

"Boring as hell," Camilla replied wearily. "Which I suppose is good, I guess—it means either they're keeping their heads down, or we're looking in the wrong place." It was hard to escape the impression that she was actually disappointed they hadn't found any bandits to fight.

"I wish I'd asked Viyami where the bandit camp was when I had the chance," I said, still annoyed at myself for not thinking of it at the time. "She might've actually told me. Next time she shows up I'll make sure to ask."

"If she shows up."

"If she shows up," I echoed in affirmation, stopping briefly in front of our room before going inside. "Which is not out of the question."

"Mm." Her reply was a sound I knew very well: a noncommittal hum that could be interpreted just about any way; usually it meant she didn't agree but didn't think it was worth disputing. "What about you? Have you managed to seduce all of the cute NPCs in town yet?"

I snorted loudly and gave her a look. If it hadn't been an absurd question because of how uncharacteristic that would've been for me, it would've still been absurd because you couldn't seduce an NPC. At least, I assumed you couldn't—I hadn't attempted it, but I wouldn't have been surprised to learn that at least one person had.

"Come on," Camilla said, grinning and looking back over her shoulder as she tinkered with her equipment menu, selecting a set of town clothing. "Don't tell me you didn't see that milkmaid that's always pathing between the stables and her house. I bet she's got a quest for you."

I laughed, and then turned it into a cough as I looked away from her and made an obvious effort of trying to compose myself. "You got me," I admitted playfully. "I soloed that one. You should've seen what she dropped."

I staggered as something warm, soft and implacable collided with me and a pair of arms looped themselves around the back of my neck. "If the answer involves a clothing item," Camilla whispered in my ear with a laugh, "you're in a world of trouble. Come on; let's go find a booth at the pub so I can sit down, put my feet up, and get some food in me."

I pretended grievous injury, slipping out of her grasp and going to open the door for her. "You need to watch it with those tackles," I said, mostly in jest. "I don't think you understand yet how much stronger you are in this world—your STR parameter makes you hit like a stack of cinder blocks."

"I'll try not to take that as a crack on my weight," Camilla said with a smirk as she walked out.

As she told it over dinner, the next day at least promised to be a little more entertaining: Yurielle had brought a few senior members from the Army to conduct militia training exercises, and seemed to have a list of volunteers who wanted to sign up. True to her word, Yurielle was going to have Camilla give shielding lessons to anyone who wanted to learn; the primary weapons used by most of the Army members we'd seen so far had been two-handed weapons and polearms, and they didn't seem to have a shield trainer.

For this show, I was willing to set my alarm like I was expected at the office. The shield training wasn't scheduled until later that morning, but Yurielle apparently wanted to meet early in order to go over the list of volunteers and plan the day's agenda.

The meeting ended up being held in the town square after breakfast. It was easily the biggest open space within the town's Safe Zone, a large rectangular area paved with a mosaic of muted earth tones using what looked like flattened and polished stones from the Foothills. A party had already been dispatched to patrol that area earlier in the morning; aside from Yurielle we saw three other Army members waiting in the square when we arrived.

"There they are," said one of them as he gestured towards us, a handsome man of perhaps 30 with close-cut black hair. "Shall we wait for the Lieutenant, ma'am?"

"He knew what time we were meeting," Yurielle said with a hint of annoyance and a glance at where I assumed her clock was pinned in her HUD. "We'll start by reviewing Camilla's shield trainees and discussing how we want to handle them."

Pale, slender fingers tapped at the air, manifesting her notes as a small book which she thumbed through. "We've got four on the list for shields. One is a new recruit, so we'll want to make sure he's selected a one-handed weapon and outfitted with the guild's starting gear. The other three are locals, one guilded and the other two not. We'll want to check over their equipment before the training and make sure it's not going to break if it takes a strong hit."

"Sounds good," Camilla said, nodding. "Do you have any idea what their levels or previous shield training are like? Am I starting with complete noobs here?"

One of the other officers snickered as Yurielle smiled thinly. "I seem to recall the youngest one sounded like he knew what he was doing, although I don't really know why he chose to use a mace. The others—"

Camilla interrupted there. "A mace? Was his name Tetsuo, by any chance?"

Yurielle glanced down at her book. "That's right," she said with surprise. "Friend of yours?"

"Of us both," I said. "He's part of a local guild called Black Cats of the Moonlit Night. Good kids. They live on this floor and they've got a lot of heart—I'd bet that if Tetsuo's volunteered, they all have."

"Oh, that poor boy." My wife rested a hand on my shoulder and put on an air of greatly exaggerated pity. "He has no idea what he's in for."

"Be gentle," I cautioned her.

She dropped her hand and looked at me as if I'd started speaking Sumerian.

"Relatively," I clarified, conceding the implicit point.

Yurielle cleared her throat, bringing our little sidebar interruption to an end. "Alright then. Obviously this part is your show—we're not going to tell you how to teach your skill. I will say that the end goal here is to have these people be able to take responsibility for patrolling their own floor and protecting their own players. However you think that's best done, we'll trust your judgment. I just need to be clear that we're also trusting you to represent the Army well here—the way you handle this reflects upon us all."

"I understand," Camilla said, bowing deeply at the waist. "You don't need to worry about—"

"It's about time, Lieutenant," Yurielle interrupted suddenly, her eyes narrowing to ice-blue slivers as she turned to address someone behind us. "I wasn't aware that Taft was that easy to get lost in."

"Sorry about that," said a disturbingly familiar voice that caused my wife to jerk upright from her bow, half-whirling around as she looked in the direction of the comment.

"Oh, please tell me you're joking," she said with a palm sliding across her face, her look of disgust and disbelief a match for the expression on Kibaou's face when he noticed her. She was looking at him like he was something unpleasant with too many legs that had crawled out from under a rock; his stare had the injured quality of someone regarding their current situation as a personal affront.

Looking back and forth between Camilla and a very confused Yurielle, Kibaou finally seemed to find his voice again. "Is this my punishment for being late?"

"Lieutenant Kibaou," Yurielle said evenly, arms crossing in front of her. "If you think you merit some kind of punishment, I'm sure it can be arranged. In the meantime I'd be most grateful if you'd explain why you're reacting in this way to our guest trainer."

"Guest… trainer?" Kibaou's expression, if possible, became even more incredulous as he took in that new information and looked at me as if noticing for the first time that I was there. "I… you're serious? These are the players who told you there was a bandit problem here?"

When Yurielle nodded, Kibaou barked out a short laugh. "Oh, now that just tears it. These two frauds? They're having you on to puff themselves up."

"Lieutenant." Yurielle had seemed so nice and sweet back in Thinker's office, and I hadn't seen her raise her voice yet other than when she was giving her intro speech the other day. When she spoke now, as quietly as before but with a sharp edge to her voice, I resolved immediately never to piss her off if I could help it. "I'm sure this is quite funny to you, but I am losing patience. You will explain yourself now, and I would take it as a kindness if you'd keep the editorial comments to a minimum."

Looking over at Camilla, I could tell from her expression that she wanted to claw out Kibaou's eyes and serve them in a gunkan roll. I had to admire her restraint in letting Kibaou answer without interrupting with an editorial comment of her own.

"I remember these two from when the game first started," Kibaou explained, looking at Camilla through slitted eyes. "Someone started a rumor that they'd killed a PKer, and they took advantage of it even though it wasn't true to make themselves look good."

"Go on, Kibaou," Camilla prompted with acidic sweetness. "Tell her the rest. Tell her how you knew that the rumors weren't true. And while you're at it, try telling the truth about how we handled it."

Kibaou's audacious bullshit was blatant enough to get me to butt in. "You've got some serious nerve, accusing us of being frauds after you got completely clowned by a 13-year-old kid and wrongly accused us based on his lies. Was that little screwup of yours not humiliating enough?"

"Oh, what?" Kibaou sneered at me as Yurielle kept looking between the three of us, mouth half-open. His look was a direct challenge and a refusal to engage anything I'd said. "You too? The lady can't defend herself?"

"The lady can defend herself just fine, Kibaou," Camilla retorted as she pulled her hair back into a tight tail and tucked it into the collar of her armor. "If you need me to demonstrate, we can make that happen—right here and now is just fine with me."

A sharp crack split the air in a searing flash of blue light, the sound as intense as if it was right in my ear. Startled, all three of us took a step back as Yurielle slowly gathered up the still-glowing coils of a whip and returned it to her hip opposite her rapier. "I trust I have your attention now?" she asked.

Seeing three rapid nods, Yurielle re-folded her arms and looked between the three of us, her disappointment and annoyance palpable. "I'm of half a mind to send Kibaou back to the first floor right now and tell the both of you to go spend the day doing something else. But it so happens that we have people we've promised to help here today. I intend to see that succeed." One at a time, she gave each of us a piercing look. "If you have issues you need to sort out between yourselves, you need to settle them now or go find another way to be useful."

"She challenged me," Kibaou said, pointing at Camilla. "Am I allowed to answer that?"

Yurielle wore a long-suffering look on her face. I couldn't tell how much of that was from Kibaou's winning personality and how much was directed at us for being part of the problem. "Perhaps that would be best," she said finally. "If crossing swords will put this to rest, then get it over with. But let this be the end of it."

At that moment it was very disturbing just how much Kibaou and my wife seemed to have in common: the reaction from both of them was nothing less than enthusiasm. "It would be my absolute pleasure," she declared flatly as she opened her menu and equipped the rest of her gear. "I don't know how Osaka-chan here managed to get any kind of authority in your guild, but every time we've crossed paths with him he's done nothing but grief us."

"I hear lots of talk, babe," Kibaou said as he slowly withdrew the large sword from his back and made his way to the open part of the square. He didn't make any move to equip the enclosed helm that was popular in the Army; privately I wondered whether it would even fit over the spiky cactus-like hairdo he sported. He grinned at her, leveling his sword as he gripped it with both hands and held it before him. "Speaking of which, you still faking that funny accent?"

Camilla didn't rise to the bait as she strode purposefully out to meet him in the open yard, drawing her best sword from the scabbard with a slithering scrape of metal. My eyes narrowed at that; if she was ignoring a crack on her accent, she was taking this deadly seriously—in a way that should have scared the wits out of Kibaou, assuming he had any. Which at this point I did not assume.

I sat down on one of the benches lining the outer edges of the yard, catching my wife's gaze briefly and nodding to her in a silent ganbatte. This one was completely out of my hands.

Standing thirty meters apart on opposite ends of the square, both of them manipulated their menus in what I assumed had to be an exchange of duel requests. A large, flat graphic appeared twenty meters in the air at a point exactly between the two of them, declaring for all to see that a duel was about to commence between Camilla and Kibaou. A stir rose amongst the small handful of players in the area, and several shouts of "duel!" echoed down the alleyways.

The number 60 appeared in the center of that hanging display, and began counting down the seconds with a series of insect-like buzzes.