No adventures, no MMO questing, no nothing. Instead, imagine living in a stupid society, so you have to teach yourself to break unjust laws. That’s basically this arc in a nutshell.
— The episode starts with Eugeo listening to Kirito giving him a dry explanation on how to become stronger. Y’know, believe in yourself. Use the power of your imagination.
— So while training one day, those two bullies drop by to talk down to Eugeo. They’re literally just generic nobles that you can find in every anime series ever, so I’m not even going to bother learning their names. You know the drill. They’re from the upper class. Eugeo is from the lower class. They think he doesn’t deserve to breathe the same air as them. Yawn.
— Thinking back to his discussion with Kirito, Eugeo remembers that these two bullies are probably strong because they believe wholeheartedly in their innate superiority to others. So even though Eugeo should’ve walked away, he accepts a duel against of them.
— That looks like a dumb sword stance. C’mon, you can’t fight like that.
— So y’know, more SAO-esque swordfighting. Not much to say here. Once you’ve seen one fight, you’ve seen them all.
— After it’s clear that Eugeo won’t lose, the bully standing on the sidelines immediately puts an end to the match and calls it a draw. He probably doesn’t want his friend to lose, but a draw is humiliating enough. Nevertheless, the two jerks threaten Eugeo before leaving the room.
— Afterwards, Eugeo and Kirito are sitting in a posh room, drinking either tea or coffee. Imagine that. In Aincrad, our hero had to beat a generic fantasy MMO in order to free himself and all of the trapped players. As a result, he went on adventures and completed quests! In that stupid fairy MMO, he had to journey to that giant tree in order to save his waifu. As a result, he went on adventures and completed quests. There weren’t really adventures in GGO, but he competed in one big battle royale in order to investigate the true identity of Death Gun! And look at us now. Just look. We’re watching Kirito and his male waifu sit in a posh room, drinking coffee or tea. Good lord, this series has lost sight of its original spirit.
— It’s amusing how you can’t even commit thought crimes in this stupid MMO, but it’s totally A-OK for the upper class to treat the lower class like dirt.
— Here comes the adventur–… haha, just joshing ya. Nah, we’re having a picnic with our pages! Yay! I love picnics! Those are fun!
— We proceed to listen to Tiese, the red head, go on and on about how the nobles are even further stratified. You wanna know what’s funny? Compared to SAO, that stupid Subaru show about the girl who can see the future is probably gonna be the best MMO-related series this year.
— Tiese further explains that lower-ranked nobles are subjected to the judgment of the higher-ranked nobles. What does that even mean? So if they tell you to jump, you ask them how high?
— Aw snap, someone’s blushing. Someone’s in love with a dirty commoner!
— Meanwhile, our black swordsman geeks out about swordsmanship. At least he isn’t cheating on Asuka!
— Anyways, the two girls open up about how one of their friends, a fellow page, is being humiliated by the same bully that had dueled Eugeo just earlier in this episode. What’s up with all these male disciples having female pages? What’s up with the fact that the poor girl can’t just change her disciple? What a stupid goddamn society.
— So Kirito ends up giving some speech about how you must learn to obey unwritten rules and disobey unjust laws. Y’know, forge your own justice or whatever. Look, Kirito’s only here to corrupt these digital souls. Make them break bad. His goal is to turn Eugeo into a bad boy so they can finally go and finally save Alice, that bad, bad girl for daring to touch the bad, bad dirt. All this just so Japan can create super soldiers or whatever.
— Near the end of the day, we see Kirito and Eugeo confront the bullies in their… uh, rather opulent room. Again, this school is so damn posh. Even commoners like Kirito and Eugeo have swanky rooms to live in. And everyone gets a female slave to boss around. No wonder he’s in no rush to escape Underworld.
— Eventually, we learn that the bully felt bad that he couldn’t beat Eugeo in a duel, so he started sexually harassing his page. Seriously. Again, you can’t touch bad, bad dirt, but I bet you anything that this guy can just treat his page like a sex slave.
— Eugeo ends up getting so mad that he would’ve pulled his sword out against them if he had it with him. But he didn’t, and afterwards, Kirito speculates that this might have been a trap to get Eugeo to act out.
— Remember when Kirito got dirt on that jackass’s uniform, so he was basically forced into a duel with real swords? So if the nobles want to punish you, they can just make you do anything? Anything? Man, whatever.
— Afterwards, Tiese goes to meet Eugeo privately, and she tells him that she’s afraid that she’ll end up having to marry some jerk noble one day. Welp, that’s just how the cookie crumbles!
— But the girl has a plan! She wants Eugeo to do so well that he’ll become an aristocrat himself! As a result, she can just marry him! What a plot, you guys. What a plot. What an episode, too. No adventures, no MMO questing, no nothing. We went from chopping down a giant tree for multiple episodes to now a bunch of rubes at an academy.