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Chapter 2: Diplomacy
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Disclaimer: I don't own anything.
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In the end, it wasn't Shiroe who decided that they needed to make contact with Aincrad, but instead the decision of one of the crafting guilds.
Or rather, as said crafting guild argued, in order to transport their troops to aid the Adventurers who would be fighting at the town of Choushi, they needed to take the sea-route rather than the land-route. And that meant that they'd need to move their ships past Aincrad. They weren't even entirely sure if there was enough open water between the 'bay' and the sea for them to move through it, so if their plans of a pincer-movement against the Goblin King's armies were to be realized, they needed to make contact with Aincrad.
Hopefully, there'd be something like a river for their ships to pass through, but considering the combined strength-stat of several hundred Adventurers, they should be able to haul the ship out of the water and over the land until it could safely be pushed back into the sea.
There were plenty of historical records of that kind of bypass having been done before, and even if the Ocypete – being steam-powered and built mostly out of steel – was probably ridiculously heavy in comparison to the ships spoken of in history, the people back then wouldn't have had access to the ridiculous strength of the Adventurers. So Shiroe sincerely believed that they'd have a good chance of pulling it off without any true concerns.
However, bringing up a ship loaded with an army straight past Aincrad, without ever actually making contact with the people who might live there? The people who'd possibly survived horrors and death for nearly two years before whatever had happened to Elder Tales?
It sounded like the kind of idea that was highly likely to end up being classified as an act of war, and Shiroe really didn't want to poke a population of people who could very well be the local equivalent of Rambo. With all of the desperate trauma and ruthless violence that such a comparison contained.
No, better to send someone off on a diplomatic trip with due haste, even if the person they sent would've ordinarily been better off doing something else in preparation for the battle.
Naturally, being the kind of person that he was, Crusty dumped the whole thing in Shiroe's lap with a smile and a mention of how 'Shiroe had a gryphon so it wouldn't slow him down'.
One day, Shiroe was going to make Crusty suffer for what the man kept putting him through. Until then though, he supposed that it was best to focus on the task at hand. And Shiroe was probably one of the Adventurer who'd kept up-to-date with the SAO-incident the most, so in all likelihood he was actually the best person for the job.
But, even so, one of these days he would definitely have his revenge.
Akatsuki shifted a little bit behind him on the gryphon, apparently a little bit confused at his shift in mood, as Shiroe chuckled darkly in anticipation of that treasured moment of exquisite vengeance.
XXX
Fifteen Floor Bosses in five weeks.
It'd been an impossible pace, and not only because the battles started to blur together something fiercely, or because they hadn't been fighting through the Floor dungeons whilst mapping them out as much as they'd been recklessly running through them trying to find the Boss Room. It was simply that, on top of all of that, they'd exhausted their safety-margin, and had reached the point where they might actually be considered under-leveled for fighting the Floor Bosses.
They couldn't continue, because they simply didn't have the levels necessary to keep on climbing.
It wasn't until nearly two weeks after reaching the 90th Floor before anyone even made an attempt at the next Floor Boss, and everyone were relieved to note that at least this time they managed to kill it on their first try, and didn't even have to suffer through half of the Players going down in the attempt.
A far cry from the previous one, that'd had – out of over a hundred participants, and on the second try – four survivors in total.
Without the threat of permanent death looming over them every step of the way, a lot of Players had scrambled for a place at the front-line. At the same time, a few of the Clearers had retired from it, not capable of handling the idea of watching people die around them – even if it wasn't permanent anymore.
Kirito had very nearly been one of those latter people. The only reason he wasn't, was because Asuna wouldn't have joined him in his retirement this time around. And he couldn't let her walk into battle alone, not without at least trying to help.
He wasn't sure if it was him being arrogant, or something else, but the idea of not being by Asuna's side in a battle gave him nightmares. And really, if he had to choose between nightmares and nightmares, he might as well be productive about it.
Still, there'd been some interesting rumors during the last two weeks of level-grinding. Rumors about mysterious Unique Skills being suddenly unlocked. Skills that were supposedly comparable to his own Dual Wield, though Kirito hadn't seen anyone actually use any of them. Yet.
It was possible that it might be related to the Transition, but Kirito wouldn't have put it past Kayaba to have arranged for special skills to start being unlocked during the 'final push' towards the 100th Floor.
Trying to anticipate Kayaba's madness was something that most everyone had long since given up on, however. And the actual source of the change was likely largely irrelevant.
New Unique Skills had been unlocked, and it was entirely possible that even more new changes in the game-mechanics were incoming. But they'd been surprised before, and they'd likely be surprised again, so there wasn't much use in worrying about it.
Still, they were in the middle of celebrating finally reaching the 91st Floor when someone in the crowd first spotted the strange little spot over the horizon. A spot that grew larger as it approached, and very much didn't look at all like a bird.
XXX
At its base, Aincrad had a ring of protrusions ending in large obelisks of some type.
Shiroe vaguely remembering it being very fantastical-looking when the castle had been floating in the sky, but as it was it instead looked almost normal. It actually reminded him of a harbor of some sort, seeing how the pier-like structures were almost the perfect height for a ship to dock at.
Still, those things were probably his best bet for a landing, seeing as he didn't want to try landing inside of Aincrad itself.
More interesting was the sight of a bunch of small shapes moving around the edges of it all, peering up at him warily.
They definitely looked like people, which meant that this probably wasn't a raid-dungeon, not that Shiroe had really held out much hope for that to be the case. Briefly signaling a 'be wary' combined with a 'be nice' towards Akatsuki, Shiroe braced himself for the landing and tried to think of how best to explain everything that'd happened since the events of the Apocalypse without ending up sounding either like a loony or like someone to blame for it.
The landing was as soft as he could really hope for, and he slid out of the saddle with the grace of long practice that he technically hadn't ever really possessed. Say what you will for the mind-mess of it all, but it was definitely useful to remember how to move in their new bodies, even if their minds weren't entirely aware of it.
Glancing around the surrounding people, he caught more than a glimpse of 'Adventurer' in their titles. Though it was weird how the few 'People' he could see weren't 'People of the Land', but rather 'People of Aincrad'. Just like the 'Adventurers' were actually 'Adventurers of Aincrad'.
An interesting distinction to keep in mind for the future. There had to be a reason to it, after all. Though it might simply have to do with SAO's flavor-text somehow being just as relevant as Elder Tales'. Considering that they were in Aincrad, Shiroe was going to admit that that made a certain amount of sense.
Still, this wasn't the time for academical curiosity. And he should probably try to make this sound as official as possible. "I'm Shiroe of Log Horizon, member and representative of the Round Table of Akihabara. I wish to speak with your leader."
XXX
"Papa, who's that?"
The voice was that of a young girl, and when Shiroe surreptitiously glanced towards it, he did indeed find one. An innocent-looking prepubescent girl sitting on the shoulders of a male teenager, whom she was apparently calling 'papa'. Which was weird because Shiroe could see that the girl was one of the People, whilst the boy was an Adventurer, not to mention that she was much too old for him to be her actual father.
Not that he was going to mention that, since he had no idea what was considered 'normal' for this place. There was really no need to go picking fights when there might be enough hostility as it was.
"He's the man that mama is supposed to talk to." The boy answered the girl, voice and expression perfectly at ease and almost lazy, but eyes dangerously sharp as the boy kept Shiroe and Akatsuki in his peripheral view at all times.
So 'mama' was one of their leaders? Did that mean that one of the People were leading Aincrad, or did it mean that two Adventurers had adopted one of the People as their daughter? Either way, there was no point in thinking too hard about it. It'd be revealed in time, he was sure.
Akatsuki shifted behind him, clearly aware of the boy's scrutiny. In fact, from-...
Shiroe felt his face twist into a small frown of confusion as Akatsuki made a signal that was something like 'numbers', her eyes a little bit wide. Glancing back towards the boy and his 'daughter', Shiroe blinked as he realized what Akatsuki had been so surprised by.
The boy's level was over the level-cap of 100.
Actually, no. There were several Adventurers around them whose levels were above the supposed level-cap of Elder Tales. Not always by much, and none of them were above it with more than ten levels, that he could see. But enough for it to be glaringly obvious that either the citizens of Aincrad followed an entirely different level-system, or the expected raising of the level-cap that should've come with the expansion was in fact something very different.
No Adventurer of Elder Tales would've had time to reach level 100 yet, so whether that was the new level-cap – as it'd been advertised – or just another level to climb and overcome-... Shiroe didn't know, and he doubted he'd hear about it for a good long while yet.
However, the game-mechanics surrounding the merge of these two worlds weren't what this meeting was about. It was about the Adventurers of Akihabara, their war against the Goblin King, and the actions necessary to protect the People of the Land during it. So he carefully filed those thoughts away for further study at a later time.
Their escort finally showed them towards a door, which opened to reveal a small assembly of people.
Shiroe could see guild-marks attached to their names, and it seemed like everyone in there had a different one. So, this was Aincrad's own version of the Round Table? Or was it something more like a war-council?
"I'm Asuna of the Knights of the Blood." A young woman in white and red said, standing in front of the others, her face serious. "Where did you come from, and what is your purpose here?"
Considering the blunt introduction from her side, and the lack of one from the others, Shiroe got the distinct feeling that this woman would definitely stab him to death if he didn't get to the point. She had that kind of no-nonsense aura about her, and none of the others seemed to be taking offense with it, so she was likely either their current spokesperson or the one unofficially in charge of the whole lot of them.
Best to be polite.
"I'm Shiroe. I was sent by the Round Table of Akihabara in order to seek passage through your lands for the sake of defending the eastern coast from the armies of the Goblin King." Shiroe nearly winced at how that ended up coming out. It was probably a bit too blunt.
Asuna didn't say anything to interrupt him however, even if her eyes narrowed dangerously.
"In order to stop the Goblin King's attacks against Eastal, we need to cripple its armies. The only way to do so without massive civilian casualties is by using a pincer-attack, meaning that time is somewhat of the essence." He nodded to the seated members of the rest of the council. "We have no intentions of involving you in this war, and the battlefield is quite some distance north-east of here so you shouldn't be affected regardless." He hastened to reassure them.
"So why do your armies need to pass through here?" One of the members spoke up, not introducing himself.
Shiroe carefully filed away the lack of an introduction, carefully deciding not to try to analyze it just yet. Mapping out the intricacies of their internal politics was not the purpose for his presence, even if it might come in handy at a later date. "In order to reach the eastern end of the battlefield in time, we need to take the sea-route. The sea-route which just so happens to have Aincrad placed right on top of it." Shiroe frowned slightly. "The water north of here used to be a bay with easy access to the sea. However, with Aincrad's current location, it'd be better classified as a lake."
"Do you have a map of the area in question?" Asuna took charge once again.
Shiroe nodded, having expected as much, and presented her with the map in question. The map which had 'Shibuya' and 'Akihabara' clearly marked on it. And even if there was nothing labeled 'Tokyo', it was blatantly obvious to anyone who looked that that was what the area it covered.
Elder Tales was designed with the world-map in mind, after all. And it stood to reason that the SAO-victims would recognize the capital of their own country.
The map also helpfully showed just how crippled their sea-route had been by Aincrad's appearance in the middle of the channel out of the bay, as well as marking the place where Ocypete was supposed to make land after passing through. Shiroe had even been extra helpful and marked out where the armies of the Goblin King were on the map, and a rough outline of how they'd been planning to corner them.
"How accurate is this map?" Asuna asked, showing off a very impressive poker face.
"Quite accurate." Shiroe was in fact rather proud of it, having drawn it himself as a master scribe.
Asuna nodded, face still blank. "What ever happened to Tokyo, Shiroe-san?"
Shiroe sighed, taking the question for what it was – a rather blatant probe to see if they shared their country of origin. "It's probably still there, back on Earth." He shrugged, ignoring how everyone in the room had tensed noticeably. "I doubt that whatever fantastical power brought us here caused any actual damage to that place." He frowned, suddenly remembering something that had slipped his mind for quite some time. "Though, I might've accidentally burnt down my apartment building if I really didn't turn off the stove-..."
Akatsuki shoved an elbow into his side, breaking him out of the slowly dawning, dazed horror that had kind of made him freeze up at the thought that he might've inadvertently hurt a lot of people.
Shiroe signaled a quick 'thanks' to Akatsuki and took a deep breath to steady himself. "As far as we've been able to determine at this time, the world we're currently in is the world of Elder Tales. A fairly old MMO. The timing seems to have coincided with the launching of a new expansion, though it's possible that that's coincidental. The People, who were once NPCs, are now perfectly sentient individuals, and this world shares a player-affected history and events with the actual game. As of yet, that's really all that we know."
Asuna stared at him for a moment longer, before nodding. "I see."
"Wow. We've got to be having the worst string of bad luck that's ever been recorded." A third member of the small council slumped back in his seat. He sniffed. "God, I miss pizza."
Shiroe couldn't help the small smirk curling his lips. "I have it on good authority that it isn't all that difficult to make."
The man straightened in his seat, his jaw slowly dropping. "Y-You-... You're telling me that you can make pizza here?!" He leapt to his feet, turning to the young woman with glee on his face. "Asuna-san, you-!"
"Sit. Down. Klein." She growled out at him.
Klein meekly returned to his seat, pouting.
The discussion got a little bit more complicated from there.
XXX
Asuna slumped down on the couch next to him with an exhausted sound. "I hate politics."
Kirito smiled, shifting slightly to make Asuna leaning into him a little bit more comfortable for both of them. "And that's why I'm a solo-player."
Asuna grunted and halfheartedly shoved an elbow into his side. "Half the meeting was just everyone trying to figure out if they should be pointing fingers or not. And then the other half was people trying to figure out how far they could push each other by threatening to point fingers."
"Riveting." Kirito nodded sagely.
Asuna groaned. "I swear, Klein was like a beacon of hope."
Kirito winced, far too aware of how annoying his friend could be when the man set his mind to it. Being locked in with a bunch of stuffy people arguing politics sounded like an absolutely horrible place to make Klein act seriously. So if he was a 'beacon of hope', Asuna must've been inches away from trying to shove someone's face through a wall for being insanely obnoxious.
Wrapping his arm around his wife's shoulders, Kirito hummed thoughtfully as he considered what he'd seen of Shiroe.
He'd had good eyes on him, even if he reminded Kirito more of a librarian than a warrior. The girl trailing after him on the other hand seemed perfectly suitable to be called 'ninja'. Sharp eyes and silent steps, remaining in Shiroe's shadow but somehow noble in her own way.
Perhaps most interesting was that the two of them had had 'classes' to their names, and that they'd both been 'Adventurers' whereas the SAO-players were all 'Adventurers of Aincrad'. All things considered, Kirito would guess that they had a very different leveling-systems.
On top of that, Shiroe was an 'enchanter', which would suggest that this world had magic in it. Not just mythical beasts or old tales of great magics shaping the world, but magical artifacts and offensive spells. Which Aincrad was sorely lacking in.
That actually made Kirito a little bit nervous. Sure, he doubted that any other RPG-system would ever ingrain its players with as much skill with a blade as SAO had demanded of its players, but most of those games usually had some kind of knight-class to go along with the numerous magic classes.
And, more importantly, Elder Tales probably also had healers and support-classes to go along with their long-distance DPS-classes. And the variations within the SAO-player's basically amounted to hitting people with slightly different kind of swords.
It was hard to say who'd emerge victorious from that kind of fight, considering that this world still operated on HP-principles, rather than the instant-death of their home-reality. It really came down to whether or not the SAO-players would be equal to or better than the knights of this world, or if they could compare to other classes as well.
Most MMOs worked to balance their class-systems by giving them a 'rock-paper-scissors'-approach, and if the SAO-players fell into being the equal of only one of those classes, then they'd be destroyed the moment they got into any sort of large-scale conflict. Since it'd mean that the enemies of this world would be able to simply fill their ranks with whatever class they had a weakness to, and then crush them underfoot.
Hopefully, it would never come to that, but Kirito hadn't survived SAO for as long as he had without learning to keep a wary eye on potential dangers. And 'other people' was unfortunately always going to be a potential danger, one way or the other.
The fact that this world apparently had reasons for an entire army to mobilize against threats? Well, that just meant that they needed to figure out the local politics as quickly as possible.
"A naval battle, huh?" Kirito mused thoughtfully.
"No. Just transportation." Asuna sighed. "Apparently Safe Zones in this world aren't a 'law of the universe' like it is in Aincrad, but are instead enforced by some kind of elite NPC-guards. So they actually need to defend their towns from monsters."
Kirito nodded, having heard some of it briefly mentioned before, and absently switching tracks as his mind wandered. "I think we're going to need to form some kind of government that includes the People of Aincrad."
"Probably." Asuna agreed, twisting around so that she could use his lap as a pillow and stretch out properly over the couch. "But they don't much care about anything outside of their respective Floors, so it'll probably be annoying as all hell."
"You're putting Klein in charge of it, aren't you?" Kirito smiled, looking down at her.
Asuna's eyes sparkled with barely restrained glee. "'Meet interesting new people', 'talk to lots of different cute girls'. Please, he'll be begging me to put him in charge of it."
Kirito stared at her with a slightly stunned expression. "Asuna, you-... you're the best."
"I know." Asuna grinned smugly up at him, before hooking an arm around his neck and pulling him downwards into a kiss.
XXX
They had permission to bring their army past Aincrad, and so far they hadn't reached the point where people really started looking for a scapegoat.
In fact – despite how the SAO-players had apparently reached three-quarters of the way to the top before the Apocalypse had happened – they didn't seem to care about the Apocalypse as much as Shiroe had expected them to. Perhaps it was simple that they'd been trapped in Aincrad for long enough that they'd all built their own lives for themselves. Lives that they would've been forced to abandon upon the completion of the game.
They probably wouldn't have minded that, to abandon their makeshift society in order to return to their families and loved ones outside. But since they no longer had the link to that place through their comatose bodies, and they really didn't have a way back home-...
For some of them, it probably hadn't really dawned on them that there was no escape from this new world. They'd after all grown used to having the goal of 'clearing the game' to cling to, so they might just continue doing that until they'd finished, even if the escape that they'd been promised no longer applied.
But for the others? For those who knew perfectly well that there was no way back to Japan, and who still weren't visually affected by it? Shiroe was guessing that those people had already eked out their own lives and livelihoods and friends and families over the years that they'd been trapped within SAO. Lives that would've been interrupted just as harshly by them actually clearing the game, and lives that they would've likely hesitated to abandon.
In comparison to the situation of Akihabara, Aincrad had already survived its own depression, and the ones who remained had at least learned how to distract themselves from their misery.
But still, from what little he'd heard, in the fourteen weeks since the Apocalypse, the 'Clearers' had pushed through a total of sixteen more Floors. That was an impressive leap in efficiency, in comparison to taking nearly two years to reach where they'd been before. And that experience meant that they'd likely been extremely cautious about challenging the new Bosses.
Shiroe couldn't really imagine what that must've been like. As far as he was concerned, a raid-boss was something you challenged and was killed by, so that you'd know how to avoid being killed the next time around. It wasn't something you could really make plans for without knowing exactly what you were up against, and yet that's what the Clearers had done.
Admittedly, from what he'd heard, most of those Bosses were fairly static, using bladed-weapons of various sorts, with semi-predictable attack-patterns to go along with it, even if they were still terrifying to fight. Kayaba seemed to believe that ruling as a god over a bunch of innocents would be less amusing if they all managed to get themselves killed without ever experiencing the entirety of Aincrad.
Still, the Aincrad version of the Round Table seemed like a pretty decent group of people. They wanted information, and were willing to trade for it.
There was definitely a hint of fierce independence there, but that was to be expected considering how long they'd been on their own. And though they could be harsh in their unusually blunt manners, there was a spark of life there that reminded Shiroe a lot of his own guild.
He got the distinct feeling that Asuna and Akatsuki might've gotten along fabulously if they'd met in a less formal environment. If for no other reason then that they'd both cheerfully knee an annoying person in the face.
Then again, Asuna was apparently married to the teenager with a daughter. Which in all likelihood opened up a whole knew can of worms. After all, for two Adventurers to adopt a daughter of the People, left the very good question of what the People in general might think of it.
Shaking the thought from his head, Shiroe continued marking down everything that'd been said during the meeting. All of the clues to their culture, all of the mentions towards how the climates of the various Floors somehow remained unchanged, all of the hints towards their relationships, all of the tiny nuggets of knowledge about how they might react to certain actions and events. He was a representative of the Round Table, and he couldn't very well leave this place without bringing some kind of report back to the rest of them.
Ignoring the politics of it all, Shiroe found himself hopelessly curious in regards to how exactly Aincrad could remain unaffected by a lessening air-pressure considering how high it reached. After all, from everything Shiroe could remember about meteorology, the entire mountain would've had to be artificially pressurized somehow, and that-...
Well, it was theoretically possible. Especially considering that Aincrad would've – at least as far as the flavor-text was concerned – been designed to fly around in the upper atmosphere amongst the clouds. But possible or not, it would've surely required massive amounts of power, and Shiroe didn't have a clue where it might be coming from.
Then again, it might be related to the same mystical force which kept Aincrad's Safety Zones working. The Safety Zones that disallowed the loss of HP, regardless of the actions taken within it.
Which actually led to a different but equally interesting question, because the Royal Guards of Akiba wasn't exactly a perfect solution, no matter how useful it was, and if they could find some way of harnessing that power outside of Aincrad-...
On her own bed next to him, Akatsuki sneezed, before making a grumbling sound and going back to snoozing away.
Shiroe wasn't entirely certain as to the reasoning behind a shared room like this, but it had its advantages. Perhaps they'd bought Akatsuki's ninja-act wholesale and concluded that she'd refuse to leave the side of her 'lord'. Or perhaps they'd made some kind of weird assumption about their relationship? Though in the case of the latter, Shiroe couldn't quite imagine why their room would've had a second bed. But he didn't really want to think about that, because imagining curling up next to Akatsuki to sleep was-...
Glancing over to the ninja, Shiroe felt his eye twitch a little at how blissfully content she looked. Were their beds really that comfortable here? Or did she just always look like that when she slept?
He hadn't really thought about it much, but the only times they'd really slept next to each other had been on the road, and she was usually the one to wake him up, so he wouldn't have known even if she did.
"My lord~..." A sleepy and nearly silent moan filled their shared room.
Shiroe's pen actually snapped in his hand, and he nearly upended the ink all over himself.
Turning around to stare with wide eyes at Akatsuki's weakly shifting form as she continued to merrily sleep away the night, Shiroe wondered what exactly the ninja was dreaming about. It was probably about something like eating ice-cream, but he couldn't quite stop the niggling thought that there was a reason that her voice had sounded so... 'breathless'.
Taking a deep breath and forcefully calming himself down. Shiroe tried to pretend that he wasn't blushing to the roots of his hair, before hurriedly making sure that he hadn't ruined his report thus far. Everything was fine. But it was pretty much finished, and he kind of doubted that he'd be able to work any more on it right now. Not with how awkwardly aware he was of Akatsuki's quiet breathing.
Yes, he could do the rest in the morning when his head stopped spinning. Right now, he was going to sleep and pretend that his heart wasn't racing, and that his mind wasn't conjuring up some very unhelpful images.
He was going to bed, and he was going to sleep.
... In his bed! Not in Akatsuki's! His own bed!
XXX
When Asuna had told him that she'd be putting Klein in charge of convincing the Floors to cooperate to form a government, Kirito had laughed.
It hadn't even really occurred to him that his friend would – upon discovering that he'd been deceived by Asuna's pretty words of spending time with cute girls – come to Kirito to complain about it. Or rather, to whine about it, seeing as how 'complaints' were more about 'fixing things' instead of 'loudly wallowing in their own misery'.
Honestly, he would've rather spent the day with Yui, teaching her the intricacies of beating boys over their heads with sticks – it was never too early to learn how important it was to scare boys away – but Asuna had needed 'family recharge'-time after all her hard work. So now he had to deal with all of the stuff that Asuna had blissfully taken a short vacation from.
Except for the Knights of the Blood, since Asuna had actually managed to grab a vice-commander to dump all of her paperwork on there. Kirito was fairly sure that it was a long-standing tradition within Asuna's guild for the 'leader' to make up reasons to avoid doing their own paperwork.
Heathcliff was apparently a good role-model.
Kirito very deliberately didn't punch Klein as the man latched onto him in a crying hug. He was saying something about how 'all the people he talked to were old and ugly' and that he had to spend so much time traveling between Floors that he couldn't even really drop by and finally eat at the recently opened pizza-place on the First Floor.
With the ease of long habit, Kirito remained blissfully unaware of the details of it all, and made all the appropriate noises to show that he was still listening. Even if he'd mostly entirely tuned Klein out after the first time he'd started to repeat himself.
Klein might be a dear friend, and Kirito might trust him with his life at the drop of a hat – even before this whole respawning-business – but that didn't mean he was going to actually pay attention to him. That'd ruin the whole dynamic of their relationship. Which included Klein mostly ranting about things that Kirito didn't care about, straight into Kirito's ear.
It was a bit weird, to realize that there was a world just outside of Aincrad's walls, after all the time that they'd spent trapped within it. But Shiroe and his ninja had taken off on a gryphon to go assist in the upcoming battle, and then that small army had shown up on a steam-boat.
It'd been a sight to see, watching all of those people moving the giant of a ship across land the way they had. It clearly hadn't been designed for the trip, what with its keel looking more like the kind of thing you'd find on an ocean-traveling ship, making their attempts to drag it across land a highly unstable-looking process. But they'd done it, and it hadn't even taken them all that long.
Which did lend some credit to their displayed levels. Sure, Aincrad and Elder Tales probably had completely different leveling-systems, so expecting someone at 'level 90' to be the same regardless of where they were from was foolish. But it was obvious that whatever the requirements for reaching those kinds of levels in Elder Tales, it didn't make them pushovers.
Honestly though, Kirito was a little bit worried about the idea of uniting Aincrad under a single banner. It needed to be done, because without it they'd be likely facing pressure from the outside to 'submit to a consistent rule', but trying to get Floors that had supposedly – according to the flavor-text anyway – been completely isolated from each other for centuries, was a bit like forcing nearly a hundred separate, and mostly isolationist, countries to flock under a single banner.
It could probably be done, especially since everyone were kind of united in their gratefulness to the SAO-players for 'clearing' their Floors. Not to mention that it certainly didn't hurt that there was some trade opening up between Floors through their recently installed cargo-lifts and the like. But it was a long-term project and Kirito wasn't sure how much time they really had.
Elder Tales had the People of the Land, and they had countries with armies of their own – even if they weren't respawning Adventurers. And Aincrad was both in a geographically important location, and filled with was likely to be exotic ingredients of various sorts – and exotic environments in which to grow them. They were a valuable target, and as long as no united government was around to 'own' those things, there was a high likelihood that the People of the Land would consider it less 'starting a war' and more 'colonizing an island'.
Not that anybody would actually let them get away with that, even if it likely meant that the Clearers mobilized to bring down any army sent their way. Aincrad was their home, the place they'd fought, bled, and died for. So, if they couldn't give the People good cause to avoid attacking, it'd be a bloodbath.
And the People of the Land didn't respawn.
Klein started bawling in the middle of his rant, having once again decided to revisit the story of that one Floor where he'd thought that he'd finally get to meet a cute girl – because there'd been a cute girl involved – only to realize that he was actually meeting with her violently overprotective father.
Kirito could relate.
He would've thrown Klein out on his nose, too.
XXX
Akatsuki was restless.
Regardless of whether they hadn't known each other for very long, it was easy to see at least that much. She might have decided that Shiroe was her lord all on her own, but he would've been a pretty crappy lord if he couldn't even tell that much, when she kept fidgeting towards signaling asking him for orders.
Admittedly, had it not been for that, he knew himself well enough that he might've simply written it off as regular nervousness. But as it was, he got the distinct feeling that she was feeling very torn, and wanted him to take the decision out of her hands so that she could stop feeling torn about it.
She wasn't a support-type, and she was strong enough that she would've been an unmistakeable asset to the front-lines. But harsh as it might sound there were numerous others already available who could easily fill those positions on the battlefield.
She might've been able to help out the defenders of Choushi, seeing as they'd be the vulnerable spot in their battle-formation, but the only way she'd be able to make it there on time was by air, and the only gryphon that could've been used for that was Shiroe's own.
Shiroe was needed here to organize things, and Akatsuki had already decided against following with the Ocypete towards Choushi when it'd arrived in Aincrad. So now she was feeling superfluous, left standing guard over a lord who would not see battle, as others fought and bled for their cause.
Yes, Shiroe was very much aware that his ninja wasn't happy about her current circumstances, but there wasn't anything he could really do about it, so he ignored it. He had a battlefield to direct, and a war to win.
Everything else was-...
"Shiroe-san! Please help us!"
Shiroe flinched, already on his feet and halfway out the hastily erected pavilion's door before he'd even registered what was happening. Minori was calling for help.
The girl whom he'd nearly failed once before, the girl he'd taken responsibility for, his youngest guild-member-... Minori was calling for help, a desperate plea in her voice that Shiroe hadn't heard for a long time.
Akatsuki was right behind him when he summoned the gryphon, and even though she looked worried about the sudden hurry they were in, there was a sense of relief in her face even as she panicked a little bit when he handed her the reins.
Apparently, that theoretical moment of trying to break apart the very laws of this world had come a lot sooner than he'd expected. But Minori had called for aid, and Shiroe wasn't known as an Arch Mage for nothing.
XXX
A/n: You have no clue how much map-checking I did in the making of this fic. I have a folder filled with maps, and several pages worth of notes on top of that. I've probably checked the canon-timeline even more, but I've been counting it in weeks instead of the days and months of LH-canon, so I think this fic's timeline ended up differing slightly from that one.
But yeah, I've got pages worth of notes about a whole slew of things. And half of the time, it's just me arguing to myself about which game-logic-path makes the most sense.
Also, Kirito's level at the end of the 75th Floor in canon, is 95. And he's not described as being the one with the singularly highest level. So yes, in order for the leveling-rate to make any sense at all as they continue to climb Floors, the Adventurers of Aincrad cannot be affected by the Elder Tales' level-cap of 100.