This was a pretty fun chapter. Lind's perspective is interesting in how direct and almost sparse it is, but there's just a hint of humor there as well (mentally referring to the King Krab's claw as a "Klaw"). I'm not really sure what to make about the DDD's magecraft, on the one hand the results they're able to get with like... a college degree understanding of physics, seems almost OP but on the other I imagine that any proper magus would consider it brutish and inelegant (which I guess they might have a point, since in real life you're not going to go around with a suit of armor and a halberd).
Klein and his guild really won my respect, I love the combination of meticulous planning and being as badass as possible. Like all the little bits with magecraft and technology working in unison, using alchemy to make liquid oxygen, getting rid of air resistance with wind magic, and forcing the whole ship to stay together with reinforcement until it was no longer needed. And on that subject, the combat bunkers also seem like huge game-changers, in the way it allows for tactics like this and easy extraction. I've gotta wonder how Kayaba is going to balance these things out, because on the one hand it is demonstrating both cleverness and an understanding of magecraft and game mechanics, on the other hand just straight up bombing every boss, or hiding in a bunker whenever someone uses a big AoE attack probably isn't how he wants things to go.
Finally the party, seeing Kirito and Asuna clearly being into each other but not really being sure how to broach it is pretty adorable, and Argo seems to agree with my assessment. The Titled player thing is interesting, I like how you're keeping how Kirito is almost on the same wavelength as Kayaba with the additional factor of that kind of weirding out anyone else who hears about it, but Argo is definitely going to keep his words in mind. And the talk with Shirou, seeming him kind of echo what Kirito was saying but from a different perspective and the way it subtly put people on edge was really nicely done, though it becomes hilarious in hindsight when you remember that while this is happening, Shirou is just wearing a speedo (it's a small thing but I liked his grumbling when Kirito made a point of not asking him about it, it's nice when Shirou gets to take a break from exposition). I wonder if Argo, Asuna, and Kirito have their own private memo things where they keep a note of every suspicious thing Shirou says (I imagine they might have tried with Illya but there was just too much to list), and what they'll make of him saying that results are the important thing.
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