As the three groups greeted each other Asuna noticed more than one member of her guards arrive and Kirito immediately separated himself from her.
Unfortunately, this is supposed to be a meeting between representatives, and Kirito is a mercenary a solo player, someone with no alliance to anyone, except for her, but that was because she is his wife.
Regardless he isn't a member of ay guild so he can't be at her side during this meeting.
As Kirito walked away he opened his help screen and found began to look for any ruins or tunnels that he could explore.
Unfortunately, the tunnels underneath the fortress were already explored and are being collapsed.
When it was discovered that they didn't lead anywhere, everyone agreed it was better for everyone living in the fortress if they weren't there anymore.
As he walked out of the living sector of the fortress and reached the exit of the fortress Kirito felt his lungs tighten, for whatever reason this world seemed to restrict his movements, but not by much.
The best way Kirito could describe it was as if he was trying to walk up a set of stairs, but every time he gave a step his feet would always land on the edge of the step and he would be forced to balance himself with his other leg.
As he exited the fortress he noticed that the kids had started a fire, by hitting two rocks together, something that they couldn't do inside Aincrad, it was just one of the things that the other players had discovered.
Even now the blacksmiths had separated themselves into two groups, those that focused on repairing and maintaining every piece of weaponry and armor that the player had, and those that experimented with whatever the players found when they went out exploring.
Right now the Army is protecting the settler while helping them build their new homes, while at the same time keeping an eye on the elves.
Kirito couldn't blame the Army for summoning Eldath and if he had to be honest, Kirito would have done the same.
As Kirito looked at the locations the players had marked he found that a lot of caves near the fortress were filled with goblins.
From what the adventurer Goblin Slayer had told him, goblins are swarm enemies, meaning that alone they aren't a problem, but when they outnumber a person, that's when they're dangerous.
The man just said to carry healing potions and if players found any children then they should kill them because goblin children learn from the deaths of the adult.
More than one group of players was heading towards the nearby caves and had marked their targets, just in case they needed help.
Marking a location is something that the players came up with after floor fifty, if a team failed to leave a tower or anyplace that they were exploring after a certain amount of time, then everyone needed to head there because something had happened to them.
Of course, by the time everyone had reached floor fifty everyone had put their differences aside and was working together.
Still, right now everyone is operating on the information they have, its funny now that he stopped to think about it, in their old world, or was it the real world, everyone knew that they couldn't just touch something and it magically became something else.
The creatures here don't just disappear when they die and leave behind gold or whatever valuables drop from them, like in the game, and yet just like in the game people can make fireballs by saying a couple of words and get paid for killing monsters.
"This whole world is confusing," Kirito said to himself
He stopped walking and for a brief moment he found a nearby tree and leaned on it, to everyone else this small little act was pointless, but for him, it was worth his weight in gold.
Kirito allowed himself to take in the sight around him, everyone around him had gone through hell just to make it here and a lot of them didn't want to go back home.
After all what was at home?
Earth may have been the world that they had grown up in, but there is a reason why everyone felt trapped there, and maybe if the situation had been different, how many people would have tried to pass the game and go back.
Kirito heard his help screen beep, the first team had cleared one of the caves already and was in the process of collapsing any tunnel that led nowhere.
"What?" Kirito said as he looked at the same message appearing over and over again but it was coming from different teams.
"Get a Hospital ready"
"Kirito!" Klein said to him
"We have work to do" Kirito heard Klein say to him before his old friend ran back into the fortress
"Stay where you are, we have enough people preparing the hospital but someone needs to receive whatever survivors the other teams found, " Asuna said to him
"What's happening?" Kirito said o himself but his question was soon answered when a group of women and girls were teleported in front of him.
They were naked and looked as if they had been tortured, but it was their eyes...their eyes looked dead as if the only thing they could do to keep themselves safe was to give p and die even if their bodies still lived.
"Okay the first group just arrived, I need a lot of people to carry them in,...guys they're in bad shape," Kirito said to everyone in the fortress
Soon several players ran towards the girls and covered them with blankest and began to either carry them inside or guide them in if they could walk, but just as one group was starting to go inside another group was teleported in.
This kept on happening over and over again, until the only reason the other teams stopped teleporting people to the fortress, was that they were done killing every goblin near their locations.