Kirito found herself in the midst of a battle as her consciousness found itself inside her dream. The dream was again as that male version, within Aincrad. Asuna was there, as well as Agil, Klein, and some other progression raiders. They were on floor 60, and had been warned by a random source that the criminal group Laughing Coffin were found with a base of operations. That led to the progression group going to deal with Laughing Coffin, but it ended up being an ambush. Laughing Coffin within the dream killed fourteen members of the progression group. The overall progression was further than floor 60, but the base was on floor 60, and the fight was there.

"Kirito-kun, cover me!"

Kirito used sonic leap to close the distance between herself and Asuna, and she remembered that within the dreams, she was distracted from important things in important situations. The skill lopped off the arm of a member of Laughing Coffin neither recognized. Kirito within the dream took advantage of his panic and outburst of pain to use the original prison transporting crystal. Kirito internally cringed at how worthless that was.

The slow and messy actions of her dream self made her feel embarrassment eat away at her and while people continued to needlessly die, she slowly returned to herself outside of the dream. Yui was hugging her and looking her in the eyes.

"It's okay. It's going to be okay mama."

Yui's comforting words and comforting hug brought Kirito the rest of the way out of the dream and she decided right away that she was going to need to cut the week long vacation a little short to scout the floor and make sure whether it was the same as the dream, then make whatever preparations she could think of if the dream were to become reality. Kirito hoped that the dream wouldn't become reality so that no lives would be lost after all her work to make sure criminal players would be locked up.

Unfortunately, that hope was shattered as a message showed up to her from Nautilus. The message said that someone went to the floor 37 house frantically knocking to request help. The person who was still there had apparently witnessed Laughing Coffin take their friend prisoner for ransom. The ransom? Convince Alt to stop progressing.

Kirito began to feel herself sweating as she realized just how much had changed between the dreams and reality. There were a lot more people inside Aincrad in reality because of Kirito's leadership in progression. More people to protect, and more criminals. Though many criminals were quartered away in the better constructed prison Kirito had built, there could be many many more within Aincrad who would want to stay inside because of the type of life that can be lived inside compared to outside. The ideal life that can be lived by those who are comfortable inside of the game or have nothing to return to outside might have stopped thinking a long time ago that regardless of what happens inside of Aincrad, their bodies outside will age and grow weak and atrophy, eventually leading to death. Plus, the cost of keeping so many people on life support for so long was unsustainable to most families.

There were some people who had recently been complaining that progression wasn't fast enough, because their families couldn't afford to keep the life support going. At least some who were focused on getting out and life outside, had the sensibility to worry about what might happen to them all soon if progression stopped.

"What should I tell this person, Kirito-san?"

Nautilus's message reminded Kirito of the current pressing situation and she nodded before typing out a response in the virtual keyboard in front of her.

"We'll gather everyone in the guild in the main hall at your location in an hour. Please wake everyone you can and get everyone ready. I'll bring food for everyone and we'll talk about this over breakfast. Make sure the informant stays so we can get their testimony right from them. We want to protect them as best we can as well."

Nautilus responded with an emoji message of a thumbs up confirmation. Kirito hopped out of bed, equipped her casual daytime equipment, and rang an aoe waking bell she had crafted a long time ago. Finally a use for it. Everyone hurried out of their rooms and Kirito hurried through food preparations.

"What's going on Kirito? What's with the loud wake up call?"

Silica's frantic questioning brought Kirito briefly out of the hurrying mindset for preparing breakfast.

"If you're awake and ready in your casual equipment, port to the floor 37 house. We're going to have breakfast with the whole guild and meet with an informant. Someone was abducted and held ransom. The ransom is for our guild to stop working on the progression. Not happening obviously, so we're going after Laughing Coffin and locking them all up in the crafted prison."

The news delivered by Kirito was startling. Everyone stared at her in silence. Kirito got back to work at preparing the guild sized breakfast.

"Breakfast will be ready and brought to the floor 37 guild house in about 5 minutes. Wait for me there with the rest of the guild and let them know I'm on the way there."

Asuna nodded and walked up beside Kirito, following her lead and supporting with making the breakfast.

"I'll help so we move as fast as possible. Everyone else, go let the rest of the guild know we'll be there shortly."

Leafa was stopped by Sinon as she was about to step in. Sachi was too shy to step in. Asuna and Kirito swiftly moved their hands as they made the preparations. Everyone else ported away to the other house without saying another word. Trust. Everyone trusted Kirito and Asuna with being fast at preparing the food. They had been cooking within the game together for months. For over a year. They moved with a swiftness and precision which would be rival to some of the best chef and sous chef combinations. Less than five minutes, and the veritable feast of fruit salad, omelettes and bread rolls. All of the ingredients were mostly prepared previously, and speeding up the cooking speed for the long cook time items was easy by using the system for the final step.

Upon arriving at the floor 37 house, Kirito and Asuna were greeted by a massive crowd. Sachi, Lisbeth and Sinon were standing aside from the crowd, but it was everyone from the guild as well as a further crowd of [FKZ] and [MBC].

"So, what are we doing Kirito-san?"

Nautilus drew the attention to himself as Kirito and Asuna got their bearings.

"Where's the person who informed us of the situation?"

The informant stepped out from behind Nautilus and the evidence of being distraught was clear on his face. He was a small guy. Smaller than Nautilus at the very least. He was younger as well. His short black hair was silky smooth and his eyes were a piercing black colour.

"P-please...save my friend...give up on clearing this world and save him..."

Kirito shivered as she felt those words' emotional weight hit her.

"We'll save your friend. Come into the guild house, everyone. We have enough food for...surprisingly everyone. Including the non Alt crowd. Let's discuss plans on rescuing your friend over breakfast."

The gathering's tension lessened a little, and Kirito cleared a path through the crowd into the house. On getting inside, she adjusted the dining area slightly so that there would be enough space for another two tables and the chairs. After setting that up, she set up all the plates and utensils for each seat.

"Sit wherever you want, except you Hiru-kun. We'll need your input about the situation as we plan the rescue of your friend. So sit across from me."

It took a minute, but everyone was seated and most people said their thanks for the food and got to eating. Kirito faced Hiru and silently watched Hiru as he ate a little.

"So Hiru, where did you encounter Laughing Coffin?"

Hiru trembled a little and put down his utensils, staring at the plate then after a few seconds raising his gaze up to Kirito's eyes.

"Laughing Coffin ambushed us at the entrance to the ruins near town on the 60th floor."

The clarity of his voice was drowned in the depressed tone he had in it. He was very emotionally attached to the friend who was abducted.

"Did you see where they took your friend?"

Hiru shook his head at first, but then sank more into his chair and glared at the food on his plate.

"Those guys went into the ruins...I think they've made the ruins their base."

Kirito nodded and looked over the crowd.

"I don't know if we're going to need everyone who gathered for this, but...better safety in numbers. Asuna, have any suggestions for how we tackle the ruins safely with so many in our group?"

Asuna shook her head.

"Not without knowing the ruins and I haven't been in the closer ruins yet. I guess the first suggestion would just be to have all our melee fighters lead and supports follow a bit behind. All together, no splitting up. We're going to need your orange player teleport crystal, and thankfully nobody here has an orange marker. It would be best that we avoid fighting Laughing Coffin and imprison as much of them as possible at once. How far is the range of the crystal?"

Kirito hummed as she thought about the suggestions Asuna made.

"The range of the orange player teleport crystal is as far as it's activation light reaches. So as long as where we encounter them doesn't have a lot of cover, we can get them all in one go. It would also be best if we aren't ambushed. I think I'll go in there and scout the ruins first since I can use the true stealth skill for up to an hour and not be detectable at all. Thankfully I maxed out my stealth skill tree a month ago..."

Kirito sighed with relief that there was at least one way to secure full victory.

"Alright, so you have a plan..."

Hiru was a little despondent.

"You really won't give up on progressing to clear us out of here?"

Kirito gave a firm stare in Hiru's direction and nodded.

"I'm sure there are plenty of rational people who have already explained to you, though some of the people trapped in here are fine with the adventures and fantasy setting, this isn't real. We have to get back to our real bodies, maintain them, get back to our real lives. Our real bodies can't be supported forever on life support. We can only be taken care of as long as our families can afford to keep us cared for in the medical system. We can't give up on progressing out of here. Even if some people who didn't side with Laughing Coffin wanted us to give up, we can't. Rationally, logically, we need to keep on working toward getting out of here."

Hiru about began to sob while Kirito explained the reason for not giving up on progressing out.

"Some people won't be able to go back to the lives they had when we get out. What about them? What about the people who were just swept up in the gaming and participated in player killing? Would they count as murderers out there?"

Kirito understood very quickly where Hiru was coming from.

"...was your friend a member of Laughing Coffin?"

Hiru's shocked expression was enough to tell everyone facing him everything.

"I can't guarantee that people who participated in killing other people won't be treated as real criminals outside. I'm not law enforcement, and I don't know how they would treat the situation. However, I do know that people trapped in here are going to be supervised with mental health therapy until we're all deemed stable enough to return to our lives. We will save your friend still. I'm going to need you to tell me their name so that I can keep them out of the jailing crystal teleport."

Hiru sighed and scooped a fork full of the fruit salad and as he chewed on it the tears dried up.

"Please...save us."

The mouthful of fruit salad muffled his voice, but the message got through to Kirito regardless.

"Alright. After breakfast, I'll go ahead and scout. Keep in touch with me through guild chat. I might need everyone on standby still. Hiru, I'll do my best to save your friend. Be sure to message me their name so I know the spelling for it. Do not worry about my safety. After all, the effectiveness of true stealth is enough that...recall when nobody could figure out where I was that one day three weeks ago? I never left the cottage."

"Kirito-chaaaaaaaaaan! Why do you get all of these broken skills and items?! Hurry up and accept Fuurinkazan to your guild! Date me already!"

Klein's frustrations were agreed with until he blurted out the demand to date him. That last statement earned him death glares.

Kirito ignored Klein's entire outburst and stood up after finishing clearing her plate. She stored away the plate in her inventory and ported to floor 60 on her own. Upon arriving, Kirito took a look around her to check whether there were people watching her. The people in the area made her go alert and initiated false stealth which allowed her to obscure herself in plain sight from other players and npcs. She made her way out of town toward the mentioned ruins. As she reached the ruins, she checked once again if anyone was taking notice of her. When there was no trace of tracking, she engaged true stealth.

[True Stealth] was a perfect skill. It muffled her footsteps completely, it muffled her equipment and skills, all of her movements, and made her appearance entirely disappear. The effect could only be triggered once every 24 hours, and only lasted for an hour. Kirito took a deep breath as if preparing to dive into water, but then sprinted as fast as she could into the ruins. She passed by skeletal monsters, imps and the main monster type of the floor, hooded spectres along her way through.

Kirito observed her surroundings and mapped the ruins as she went. All of the life her life sense skill triggered to was monsters. She wondered whether it was true that they were making the ruins their base before long. Five minutes into her headlong sprint and she had mapped out over thirty percent of the ruins. Not needing to fight any of the monsters and just going from room to room with the advanced coverage sight filled her map very fast. Another ten minutes and the map was seventy percent full. The only section left was where she found a large monument type grave. In there, she found a group of about forty people fighting the boss monster of the ruins, all wearing hooded tattered robes and using familiar weapon types. It was Laughing Coffin. Kirito took finding them all fighting the boss as an opportunity to check with Hiru if he knew how many people were in the Laughing Coffin guild. A quick response turned out over sixty in prison, and forty out of prison. Kirito smiled softly and messaged again.

"I'm going to need you to tell me your friend's name now so I can pull him out of there. I can send the rest of their guild into the prison as soon as I get your friend out."

Hiru responded quickly and added a relieved emoticon.

"Yula."

Kirito scanned the fight against the boss monster and nodded before coming up with a plan to pull Yula out. Thankfully Yula wasn't tanking. Yula was just someone contributing to damage and wasn't particularly being watched. Kirito observed a little longer as the boss monster's health drained slowly. Laughing Coffin weren't strong. It was taking them a long time to kill a mid boss. Kirito could defeat that monster on her own in less than a minute, she understood as she observed.

It only took her a minute to figure out how she would do it. Acting right away, she timed an effect enhancing needle on the boss monster with a smog attack, which filled the room with smog, and pulled a binding rope from her inventory. She went into the smog and drank a poison resist potion so she wouldn't be effected. She wrapped the rope around Yula and the poison put her to sleep. As the smog cleared, Yula was missing while many more of the guild were on the floor incapacitated and the boss was on a rampage due to the item used on it enhancing effects for a minute. Yula tucked away in a safe corner out of view of the room, Kirito pulled the orange crystal out of her inventory while the ghostly monster swiped to take out the person tanking it, jumped onto the monster's back and activated the crystal before unsheathing her sword and sinking it into the head of it. The monster collapsed as its hit points hit zero, shattered, and the members of Laughing Coffin disappeared from sight in teleport animation.

It went so smoothly, Kirito wondered if it was really so easy. Every person aside Yula from Laughing Coffin was sent to the prison without knowing Kirito was even there.

Kirito heard her messages go crazy in the next second. She checked it over along with the items dropped by the monster and shook her head. The items dropped were basically insignificant, but the messages were frantic craze as Klein and a few others spammed messages about Kirito being too overpowered having sent all of Laughing Coffin to the prison in one go.

Hiru messaged once, thanking her that Yula wasn't with the crowd ported into the prison. The crowd within the prison were apparently very violently protesting their imprisonment, trying to break through the immortal object walls with their hands since their equipment was locked into their inventories.

Kirito smiled at the messages and left the boss room of the ruins, went to Yula and put a hand on her shoulder before porting to floor 1. The prison wasn't immediately visible, but after picking up Yula in a shoulder carry, Kirito quickly passed through the alleys to the second largest opening where a windowed building stood. The windowed and barred building was the crafted prison. Inside of the prison was now around one hundred orange marker players. Criminals. The amount of them slamming their fists against the unbreakable glass was new to her. Yula woke and immediately struggled to get out of Kirito's hold.

Kirito put her down sitting on the ground and left her struggling with the rope bind. Hiru looked on in shock, but leapt to hug Yula.

"Thank you Kirito-san...! Thank you for saving Yula!"

"What did you do?! What happened Hiru-kun?! I thought you were going to convince them to quit progressing out!"

Hiru staggered back away from her, looking in fear at her who glared and shouted furiously. Kirito stepped between them as if to protect him and looked her in the eyes.

"Hiru wasn't going to be able to convince us to stop working on getting out of here. I'll trust him to repeat my words to you. You were spared being thrown in with the rest of the criminals because of him. You should be thanking Hiru that you were spared that. However, you will not be going entirely free. I can't trust someone who committed crimes to go entirely free. You will be wearing this choker which prevents all forms of crime within Aincrad. I will also be putting one on Hiru. It has some stats to it so it'll protect you if you go out into the fields together and fight monsters so don't think of it as solely a burden. Prove to us that you were worth keeping out of there."

Kirito turned away and looked back into the prison to see the newly added prisoners inside. There were a number of people he didn't recognize. All of them still had their orange criminal markers. For the most part, the criminals inside wore hooded robes, cowls and the like. It was not a pleasant sight. All of the masks, hiding their identities. If someone were to normally look at all of the people in there, it would be normal to guess that they just wanted to hide their identity. Since everyone looked like their real life selves minus hair colour, seeing the appearance of someone you might know from outside might not be a pleasant experience. There were small differences between the prisoners as far as their appearance. Some with skull masks, some with glowing eye masks. All different kinds of masks, different colours of tattered robe. Some of them had cleaner, less tattered looking robes. Some weren't in robes at all such as Rosalia who had given Kirito a few encounters in the past.

There were plenty of people who were relaxing inside of the prison. People who were either resigned to their fate in the prison, or some who had been in there a while already.

"My job here is done. Let's go clear another floor to make it clear to these people that we're not going to stop working our way out. We choose life, not keeping ourselves imprisoned in Aincrad."

Kirito ported away, and her words hung in the air. Everyone in the area, especially those who were largely ignored just stared at where she had been standing. It was a powerful statement. Any further criminal activity would result in imprisonment with no hesitation.