Chaos

"Chaos" is the twenty-fourth episode of the Log Horizon anime. It first aired on March 15, 2014.

Synopsis
Shiroe believes that the People of the Land led by the newly-arrived Lord Malves, a merchant nobleman from Westelande, are responsible for attacking Akiba and that Lord Malves seeks to destroy the Round Table's reputation and interfere with Akiba's treaty with Eastal (so that Eastal won't be the sole beneficiary of this kind of preferential agreement). He arrives at conclusion based on the logic that when Elder Tale was just a game, there were no quests that involved removing a leader from power and Adventurers wouldn't be interested in something that tedious.

Henrietta suggests that it might be necessary to cancel the festival, but Shiroe counters by saying that cancelling the festival benefit Lord Malves because it would cause people to question the Round Table's organizing and problem-solving ability. To prepare a counterattack, Shiroe tasks his comrades to gather more information while Minori does her best to keep Karashin's office running using the skills she learned from Shiroe.

Afterward, Shiroe begins plotting all the points of disturbances caused by the People of the Land but has difficulty discerning a pattern from their seemingly random actions until he finally realizes that the People are actually improvising on the spot.

Pressed to come up with a solution, Shiroe gets a spark of genius after meeting Soujirou who has won the cake contest with the help of his guild. In the meantime, Lord Malves crashes the Twilight Banquet and corners Raynesia over his supposed mishandled cargo documents.

Elsewhere, in a brilliant countermeasure, Shiroe uses the West Wind Brigade's infatuation with Soujiro as incentive for them to patrol the city and handle the disturbances. Shiroe and co. then learn of the banquet disturbance and decide to make the festival enjoyable as their true counterattack.

Finally, Shiroe makes an appearance at Raynesia's banquet.