In the days following the discovery of the leaders of laughing coffin Argo's information network worked double time, attempting to locate the pkers. Despite their hard work it seemed like no one could find the allusive guild. The members of laughing coffin seemed to be able to predict all of their moves before they made them. It wasn't long before Kirito began suspecting a traitor among the group of guilds they were working with. He trusted the members of his guild though because each and every one in his guild had undergone an extensive background check. This check included being tailed by one of Argo's informants for a term of at least 38 hours over the course of a week or two.

As such Kirito began organizing his guild to act independently after explaining his suspicions to the other coordinating guilds. Despite this they had little better luck than before as the guild laughing coffins were obviously extremely careful when performing their operations. It had been at a standstill when Silica of all people had come up with a solution. They had been discussing the situation over breakfast at the time.

"I still think that their base might be on the 3 floor" Argo said "the misty forest are a known labyrinth and despite the low level monsters it's easy to get lost." She explained "add that to the fact that there are lots of underground caverns and abandoned buildings in the forest and you got the perfect creep fest."

"Maybe" Kirito said before continuing "but I think they might want to keep close to the front lines as they can't be in town to use the teleports it requires them to manually climb up the tower one floor at a time. If they wanted to get enough money to make a reasonable profit they would have to be on at least floor 6 I'd say."

"True" Argo agreed conceding the point "most player kills occur on the 6th, 7th, and 8th floors just behind the frontlines.

"Um Kirito" Silica had said uncertainly

"What's up Silica?" Kirito said turning to her smiling slightly

Silica blushed a bit and said uncertainly "If they have to climb the floors manually couldn't some people camp out on the stairs and ambush the orange players as they moved up?" she said nervously.

Kirito just froze staring at her. A minute passed, then two, silica was getting decidedly uncomfortable before Kirito said whilst slamming his head on the table repeatedly "Why - didn't - I - think of that! Silica you're a genius!" he said hitting his head on the table one last time solidly. Ignoring the immortal object pop up on the stone table he turned to Argo.

"I need a list of everyone in our guild that has a hiding level surpassing 300 that can fight effectively in close quarters." He told Argo.

She nodded in response "On it." She began shooting of messages quickly ignoring her half eaten breakfast.

Kirito stood up and as he walked out he stopped behind Silica and put a hand on her head "Great work Silica" he said smirking winningly he turned around and walked out of the dining hall leaving the heavily blushing Silica behind. The other people in the room just sighed shaking their heads at their leader's cluelessness.

2 days later Kirito and around 15 members of his guild were waiting in ambush hidden in the shadows behind various statues in the cleared boss room of floor 7. They had been staked out here for around 6 hours and Kirito was glad that there was no in game fatigue if there was he would be in horrible pain at this point. He was just about to call it a night and retreat back to town with his squad when he heard footsteps.

His men immediately tense silently drawing his weapon Kirito put a finger to his lips looking at his men. They all nodded pulling out their own weapons as they heard voices coming from the area ahead.

"Damn there's been nothing but poor weaklings lately." A gruff voice said angrily.

"I know right?" another voice said "maybe we should go after one of those front liner guilds" the voice continued "maybe the black mark, I've heard they have their own personal blacksmith that makes all of their gear barring rare item drops."

"You crazy?" a third voice said "those guys are the best of best, I've heard."

"Tch, I've heard there lead by some arrogant brat who thinks he's a complete badass just because he dresses in black." A fourth voice said as they walked into the room. The voice was revealed to belong to a gruff looking man with blood red hair wielding a two hand sword. A quick glance at their group confirmed what they already knew; they were a group of 7 orange players.

"I bet I could kick his ass if I ever met him." the man continued as he stopped in front of the exact statue Kirito was behind his back turned.

Kirito couldn't resist and signaled his men, like wraith he slipped from the shadows silently. Unnoticed by the man's comrades he glided up to the pkers unguarded back. Kirito then pressed his blade to the man's neck whispering in a snakelike voice "Iss that ssso?" before laughing evilly much to the amusement of his men as they immerged from the shadows.

The swiftly surrounded the group weapons drawn and at the ready. The red haired man had frozen and was shaking heavily. "Who a-are y-you?"

"Who am I?" Kirito replied "oh I'm just some arrogant brat who thinks he's a complete badass" he continued in a dark whisper." Kirito smiled darkly at the six other members of the pkers and continued "I'd put down you're weapons if I were you" he paused laughing "if you want to live that is"

The 6 pkers hesitated for a second looking at each other before dropping their weapons swiftly.

"That includes you" Kirito said to the man in front of him who was still clutching his sword in his pale fist. When the man did nothing Kirito slowly began pressing his blade against the man's neck with more and more strength. The man's health dropped swiftly to around 80 courtesy of Kirito over-leveled character and high level blade. The man's weapon clattered to the ground and Kirito reduced the strength he was using ceasing the attack.

Kirito's men watch on in amusement as their leader continued to get in the character form of a physcopathic villain (the complete opposite of his normal mood) figuring he was getting revenge for the red haired players comment as well as for being pkers in general. Pulling out several location teleport crystals the members of Kirito's squad teleported the 6 pkers to the dudgeon located in the basement of the black marks fortress leaving only the red hair man behind.

"You know" Kirito said conversationally " If I just pressed a little harder with my sword right know you know what would happen?" he asked the orange player as he simultaneously pressed a bit harder with his blade causing the man's health to drop marginally.

The man just shook staring at his health bar in horror as it slowly dropped bit by bit " I wouldn't even get in trouble for it" Kirito continued as the bar dropped out of green. "And I'd get all of your money and a nice bit of XP too. I could just say you tried to escape and I was forced to kill you" he laughed again the man's health bar dropped into the red leaving about 30 percent. It kept dropping until when it was at twenty percent Kirito suddenly dropped the struggling man throwing him to the ground.

Switching back to his normal voice Kirito "how does it feel?" he said pausing "to look death in the eye and be helpless? Each and every person you scum have killed felt the same way." Kirito looked at the man angrily as he whimpered on the floor "not so fun when the boot's on the other foot is it?" he said nodding to one of his men who swiftly used a teleport crystal.

As soon as the man teleported away the entire stealth squad gave him a look.

"What?" Kirito asked they just stared at him "come on guys I wasn't gonna do anything serious, and he deserved it" they continued to stare him "….guys?" Kirito said again

They all burst out laughing "leader are you gonna pursue a career in theater after this?" a voice called out.

"Yeah!" another voice called out agreeing "you'd make the perfect badass super villain!"

At this Kirito just sweat-dropped at his guild-mates reaction he supposed he kind of deserved it, he might, and I say might, have taken that a little tiny bit too far but the bastard deserved it.

"Hey boss!" one the men called "You gonna do that to Kibaou when we catch him?" the man continued "Cause if so do it on a vid crystal, his face would be priceless!"

Kirito just sighed face palming, he was never going to live this down.

Suddenly turning serious he called out "move out! It's time to return to the base." He said. At his word his men immediately sobered up becoming serious and lining up in the loose and liquid defensive formation they usually traveled in. checking the formation quickly Kirito took his place at the front a signaled for his men to move.

(A/N Whoa Kirito! Got a little dark there for a moment didn't you -_- geez. Anyway we got to see Kirito scare the shit out of a pker today as well as set them up to find Kibaou the reason why Kirito's reaction was so dark will be revealed later in the series. not that none of the girls were present as most of them Aren't situated for close quarters combat and stealth and Argo was busy gathering information.)