Asuna and Leafa better peg Lux/Kuro for an imposter or something is wrong with them because Leafa wouldn't mistake her brother for someone else (especially since she seems to be with him right now) and Asuna would not be fooled into thinking someone else was the guy she married in SAO.

Is Kuro the one one girl in a SAO manga wehre she made a char in ALO look like Kirito and met Leafa and the other girls? xD

If Kuro was a heavy Kirito fan I would've imagined their meeting to be like this;

Kuro felt her eyes widen when her gaze fell upon a heavily confused and intrigued Kirito. Up until now, she kept a persona resembling the person she deeply admired to seem strong for everybody. Now that the said person is right in front of her eyes, she felt her restrains and reason blown to the fourth wind...

'No! Freaking! Wayyyyyyyyy! *squeal*'

"K-Kirito..-san? Kirito-san? KIRITO-SAN?! KIRITO-SAAAAAAN!~" Kuro, stupidly ignoring the harem of girls behind herself and her idol, made a mad dash and hopped infront of Kirito. Eyes sparkling in admiration and joy as she gushed around the real black swordsman. Unknown to her that everyone withing visionary proximity had their jaws dropped, eyes widen, and freezing for different reasons.

"Well, hey... uhh I heard you've been helping keeping Akihabara secured. Kuro, right? I just want to ask why you look like my SAO avatar though?" Kirito (that mthfkng bishounen) rubbed the back of his neck while giving a sheepish smile to the fanboy(girl) in front of him.

HAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHA

Great chapter, will you be picking up this story again soon?

I'm sorry, I can't help but laugh everytime you call sao's completely useless HUD and interface elegant or streamlined. As a game interface that requires actual hand movements in game, and with all it's lists and menus... I can't think of a worse interface for an mmo.

The interface in the sao games are equally useless in an mmo, designed as they are for single player games.

Otherwise, the story is really good so far.

I liked the chapter!

Having come from your 2814 series, I sorta knew to expect this...but you definitely went above and beyond here. It’s insane! All the characters are in...well...character (that is, if you applied 2814 style lovecraftian insanity and thirst upon them). Love the title and look forward to more along with LeaguerS. Seriously, you left us at a cliffhanger

Well, I feel like an imbecile. I made the novice mistake of only reading up to the second-to-last chapter before commenting, and since I had the story open in two different tabs I accidentally replied to chapter 6 instead of chapter 1 as I'd intended. Oops. Oh well, I still stand by the general thrust of my statements (more consise narrative, clearer character roles, etc), even if the last chapter invalidated some of the particular details. And the Kuro/Lux story arc has a clear trajectory now, even if I do find it somewhat groanworthy.

Moving on, to continue from an earlier tangent, the natural juncture in-story for the Round Table Alliance and the Knights of Blood to officially make contact would be the Summer Training Arc, with both factions being simultaneously invited by the League of Free Cities Eastal to attend the Council of Lords at the Ancient Palace of Eternal Ice to discuss the future of Lander/Adventurer relations in light of the Apocalypse (incidentally, that is exactly the sort of high-stakes political environment which an information broker like Argo-The-Rat would thrive in; conspire an excuse for her to be there). Before that, both Akihabara and Shibuya would have a vague idea about the goings-on in the others' city based on rumor and hearsay (little of it flattering), but with neither being high enough on their respective list of priorities to establish much in the way of 'ground truth'.

Once they do make contact, the heart of the drama becomes an issue of culture shock. The SAO Survivors have their own deeply-ingrained social norms and social structures from the Death Game which they have effectively imported wholesale to Elder Tales, and that is going to be a major source of friction when interacting with everyone else. Even assuming that the RTA and KoB agree that they're on the same side and that they should present a united front when dealing with the People of the Land, there's going to be a lot of heated discussion behind closed doors simply because of conflicting priorities. With the matter of the Goblin King in particular, I see the KoB reflexively identifying it as a [Field Boss], and therefore their personal responsibility as Clearers to slay (RTA: "We don't have a standing army." KoB: "We ARE a standing army." etc.). When all is said and done, both sides are likely to end up as allies, maybe even friends, but I highly doubt that KoB is going to be taking a seat at the Round Table.

Then Plant Hwyaden and Holy Empire Westlande become involved, and things get messy.

Well this looks promising. Your prose is consistently humorous, but the narrative remains grounded enough that the work doesn't veer into crackfic territory.

Basing the SAO Survivors out of Shibuya was an inspired move. The fact that the location was abandoned early on in LH canon and remained isolated and unimportant until much later gives you a free hand to explore how they react to their abrupt change in circumstances, contrasting with how the 'normal' Elder Tales players are adjusting, and the lack of Cathedral means that the realization that respawns are a thing can be held off much longer. Really, you couldn't ask for a more perfect location.

I also enormously approve of Klien's guild, Fuurinkazan, getting a larger role here. When you think about it, they're basically the Debauchery Tea Party of SAO: a small, dedicated group of IRL friends who managed to keep pace with frontline guilds like the Knights of Blood, and more impressively they all got out of the game alive. Their off-screen journey from scrubs to greatness was the story that tragically went untold in the source material; seeing them given a chance to shine is very cathartic.

However, I do feel that the story suffers from a bit from character bloat and an incoherent narrative. The adventures of Asuna, Klien, and his guildies in Shibuya are solid; likewise, Kirito's journey from Akiba to Shibuya is a convenient way to prevent him from absorbing all the other characters' agency like a sponge. Everything else is really just excess baggage. In hindsight, it would have been better to start with a small core cast of main characters, and slowly reintroduced peripheral characters as they become relevant. Although I have to stress that those extra characters should have a damn good reason for being there, especially when you have the out of excusing their absence by their not being logged in to Elder Tale at the time. I get that you are fond of all these characters, but as a writer you always need to ask yourself: what role is this character supposed to play? Not just in the immediate scene, but in the larger picture of the entire narrative.

Also, even if they're not interacting with the LH main cast yet, we really ought to have more scenes from their perspective. While I'm appreciative of the fact that you've mostly avoided the SAO and LH cast meeting straight away (as is the common temptation in these sort of crossovers), just the fact that the SAO Death Game was a thing that everyone knows about is going to make it a topic of discussion, to say nothing of other butterflies. I feel that an interlude every few chapters where we get to catch up with what the LH main cast are up to would be advisable; at the very least, it would help make the inevitable meeting between the SAO and LH characters much less abrupt and jarring.

Conversely, I feel that Kuro rescuing Minori and Tohya from Hamelin, and Philia rescuing Serara from Demikas, were rather contrived coincidences; even if the particular details of those incidents were rather entertaining. Without that, we could generally assume that the LH main cast are proceeding more or less as they did in canon. However, interfering with these pivotal events could potentially cause massive knock-on effects, and so far we've been kept completely in the dark as to what those ripple effects could be.

Incidentally, given the generally comic tone of the story, I can't help but mentally superimpose the personalities of their Abridged counterparts over the SAO cast here; it works surprisingly well. You can't be faulted for not using material that didn't exist when you started, but I can't help but think how glorious a SAO/LH Abridged crossover using your general premise here would be.

Great story. But don't they keep their real voices in Elder Tale? If so, then why doesn't Argo, being the ever observant info broker she is, realize that Kuro doesn't have the same voice as Kirito? I assume they keep their voices because later on, they make a big deal about players who play as the opposite gender gaining voices more appropriate for their avatar's gender, or something like that. Anyway, despite that, I love that everyone is mistaking Kuro for Kirito, aka, the Black Swordsman. It'll be interesting when Kirito hears about everything the 'Black Swordsman' has been doing in Akihabara.

Nice chapters so far, Love how in over her head Kuro is and Chloe is a familiar face, honestly the gag about none of Kirito's rejected women's club not knowing about Klein is pretty funny.

Poor, poor Argo. Can't wait for the moment when she, Kuro and Kirito are all in one room.

[something long and hard]... Smooth. Real smooth. The cameo in the first segment is pretty obvious, but I guess it's made to be. Also, I'm quite sure at that point that Lux has a male avatar. And that Lux... I wasn't aware of that fact about her.. Oh well. He's gonna be in for a surprise when he comes back to town... Also, Lux needs a wake up call. Something among the lines of 'everyone can be a hero'. Also, it would be nice to see what's with the rest of the LH crew... And it also seems like Minori, Toya and Isuzu swapped side. Probably not gonna be interacting with Shiroe much, if at all.

That particular Crossover has a lot of promise, since it has several similar characters. I want to see a joint Shiroe/Asuna planning session!

I'm still trying to figure out if you're serious when you're implying about Kazuto and Sugu.

Is Tamagogo a guy in a girl's character? Because Klein acts like he didn't have any female friends beyond acquaintance before SAO, and Eldar Tales is to RL gender bound, so gender swapping is a possibility (that did happened in LH canon). Also, that was the Kirito lookalike! I guess you moved her from Alfhaim since now VR games... And she opened a male character to get closer to her idol? Or simply a guy like girl character who was not seen clearly in the dark if their scene?