The tension in the air was so thick that a person could walk into it and hit themselves with it, as the Players, the Imperial Guard, and the Void Born all aimed their weapons at each other.
"That's enough put your guns down!" Kirito yelled at the Humans in front of him, he could see the madness in their eyes, it was a madness born out of starvation and desperation.
"What do you want!?" one of the soldiers asked him.
"We just saw the ship floating alone and we decided to see if there was anything in it." Kirito answered the man who gave him a mocking smile.
"Lower your weapons." the man said to his men who hesitantly did what he said.
"You're late the higher-ups took everything valuable with them and the only things left here are us and the trash." the man said to him, as he pointed at the Void Born.
"Listen both of you, we are willing to bring you with us, and by that I mean we can help you fix your ship."
"All that we ask is that if ever need your help, you help us." Kirito says to the man and the Void Born who slowly lower their weapons.
'We have a lot of hungry people." the pale figure of the Void Born says to him.
The silence that followed as the three groups looked at each other seemed to last for hours, despite it only lasting a few seconds.
Both the Void Born and the Humans of the ship Knew that the chances of them ever being found again were next to impossible, and both of them knew that there were fates worse than dying in the ship because it had finally run out of air.
With a simple nod, both groups agreed to follow the players towards their ship.
"Greate." Kirito says to them before he starts to lead them toward the area of the ship that he and the other players used to enter.
Both the Void Born and the Guardsmen remained silent as they carefully looked through every dark corner that they passed for something that shouldn't have been there, after all, they weren't the only ones who lived on the ship.
When they finally arrived at the massive door that led into space they found that not only was the door opened but some kind of shield was keeping the inside of the ship separated from the empty void of space.
As they looked beyond the empty black void of space they found themselves looking at a massive space station that wasn't far from their location.
The space station was so large that it had several Imperial ships docked into it.
Yet this wasn't what caught their attention, what caught their attention was that with every passing moment, both the space station and the ships connected to it seemed to be getting closer.
"Explain." the leader of the guard says to Kirito.
"What there o explain, we found a bunch of abandoned ships, or what we thought were abandoned ships and decided to explore."
"The fact that you and your people are here is proof that they weren't completely abandoned, so we made the same deal with them, that I made with you.'
"We fix your ship and you help us." Kirito answers the guard leader.
The sound of the ship's engines coming to life along with the various machines that had long since stopped working were immediately drowned out by the combination of the voices of Servitors and the alarms that alerted the crew to abandon ship.
The flashing red, yellow, and green lights assaulted the sense of the civilians who were huddled together deep within the ship, as they tried to hide from the creatures that called their metal tumb home.
Both the Void Born and the Guard watched as Aincrad connected itself to their ship before a massive door rose in front of them allowing them to enter.
As they walked deeper into the space station they began to feel and taste the clean air, it was something that the guard never expected to feel and taste again.
the Void Born didn't know what to think, as they only ever experienced the stale filtered air that existed in their ship.
"Welcome to Aincrad, one of the higher-ups will be here in a moment." Kirito says to them before he leans on the wall behind him until one of the Guild Leaders arrives to negotiate with the Void Born and the guard.
What followed were the usual insults and accusations of demon worshipers, being traitors to humanity.
Finally, after all three groups lowered their weapons after they tried to kill each other again everyone agreed that killing each other wasn't going to do anyone any good.
Kirito didn't say anything when he was ordered to stand guard while the Void born and the guardsmen searched their ship for the rest of its crew, he kept quiet when he saw pregnant women, alongside elderly, small children, and even babies walking out.
He didn't say anything as he watched the mutilated bodies of men and women carry out the few worldly possessions of the people.
He had seen this sort of thing enough times for it not to affect him anymore, eventually, the people of the ship would find a floor that they liked and they could settle into it.
God knew that the Players needed these people's experiences considering everything that Aincrad discovered whenever it entered one of the ship's computers.
He passed the priests giving his speeches about the Emperor and ignored the guardsmen who came from different planets as they practiced using their weapons.
The guardsmen who saw him nodded to him as a show of respect, and he did the same for them.
Aincrad had changed ever since coming to this reality, there were now entire floors that were just one big city, but considering that those floors were once filled with rust and a blank void, Kirito thought that the changes were an improvement.
He could hear the various representatives of the guards arguing that they should ignore the player's words and kill all of the Beast Men that were on the ship, only to be told by those who belonged to another group that by doing so they risked damaging Aincrad.
He could hear the different nobles or people who claimed to be nobles, along with the leaders of the church, and the leaders of the machine men who knew how to fix the Imperium technology, who all claimed that they needed an entire floor for themselves.
The Guild Leaders quickly told them that if they needed an entire planet for themselves, then they just had to point and they would leave them in it.
Kirito couldn't help but smile when he heard that.
For whatever reason, everyone who seemed to come from a high position of authority thought that they could get away with everything.
More than once the Players were forced to remove someone from power because they thought that they could hurt regular people just because they wanted to.
He finally stopped walking when he reached the teleporting gate and activated it, the gate had changed as it was now able to move a large group of people along with whatever tools and other things they had with them.
The floor that he was on, was one of the smaller floors. One that was used to help the recent arrivals get used to the way that things are done inside the castle.
It had everything from clean water, animals that they could hunt, and all kinds of vegetables that they could eat.
It was a floor that was meant to help people relax, but the players had quickly learned that whenever anyone who was once inside one of the lost ships came here, they almost immediately broke down.
It usually took a month, but every one of the people that he had escorted onto this floor would eventually either start to laugh like an insane person or cry because they finally accepted that they weren't going to die forgotten in space.