Quote:
Originally Posted by kyp275
Keep in mind that gaining level in SAO is not a particularly easy task - Scilica is said to be on the high end among the non-clearing group population (ie. the vast majority of the player base), and even then she was only in the 40s. The best leveling spot is always at the front line where the clearing groups are, and given that orange guilds are not exactly on peaceful terms with.. well, anyone, any orange player would be hard-pressed to gain access to the good leveling spots, they're much more likely to get tossed into jail instead.
While your what-ifs are certainly not impossible, they make no logical sense in this context. It makes no sense for the bandits to go on a suicide charge against Kirito to kill Scilica. They're there to kill weak players and rob their valuables, not to throw their life away for no apparent reason. There's also no reason for them to pretend to be weak and hide any "trump" cards, nor is there a way for them to call in any high level "friends" - there is no instant teleport to friends/party member abilities in SAO. Any help they can call upon would already have to be there with them, which again makes no sense as they're bandits going to ambush a couple poor sods, not trying to fight an all-out battle against a top level player from the clearing group, which is rather far-removed from their level of players.
While it's true that one can never be 100% sure, in this particular case it's about as certain as one can possibly be. Also keep in mind that the pleads from the sole surviving leader of the guild that was wiped out probably struck at particular chord with Kirito given what happened earlier.
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Okay, call it 99%. It's still possible.
No reason to hold trump cards? Of course there's a reason to hold trump cards. Pkers have more reason to hold trump cards than any other player... They rely completely on having the upper hand at all times. It's risky enough when your targets are monsters, but when attacking humans you have to be ready for anything. And they knew she had an unknown escort who was higher level, high enough to trivialize the dungeon as well as give Silica good enough equipment to trivialize it on her own. Most of the PKers we've seen have relies on tricks and poisons and such.
PKers in the clearing groups? Oh hey, wasn't there one in volume 1? What's-his-face who infiltrated KoB? That was kind of a major plot point. And, well, the leader of the gang in this particular story also blended in nicely with the peaceful players. Just because you're an orange player doesn't mean you're always orange. Who knows how many people in the clearing group would be willing to help a murderer? You don't know, and Kirito doesn't know. And of course they'd have been part of the original ambush as opposed to coming in afterwards, but how exactly does that help? You can't tell how strong someone is by looking at them. Maybe some high level guy was taking a break and decided to help his low level friends. Maybe he knows them in real life.
Too many variables.
Edit: I'm not saying Kirito was stupid to have confidence. 90%, or 99%, are very good odds. However, when seen as "the event immediately after RNR" is becomes odd to think that he'd suddenly take any risk at all of an ally dying under his protection, let alone put them in danger.