Black Sword Knights

Black Sword Knights (also translated as the Knights of the Black Sword) is one of the major battle guilds in Akiba, led by "Black Sword" Isaac. The guild is infamous for only accepting members that are level 85 or higher.

After the Catastrophe, the guild later becomes one of the members of the Round Table Alliance, and remains in the reformed New Round Table Council.

Overview
Black Sword Knights is a guild founded by "Black Sword" Isaac. Known for being elitist and considered as a pure-blooded battle guild, it has the policy of only accepting members that are on level 85 or higher. The highly competitive nature of the guild became a turn-off for even some of the guild's own members ; some time in the past, Woodstock W left to form his own guild, Grandale.

For the guild, the high level requirement is here because "It would suck being left alone unable to do a high level raid just because of a level cap". Additionally, they also justify it by saying "It would be weird to hang out with people who don't get along".

The guild mainly consists of male players, causing several members complain to Soujiro about the dearth of female players on their team and the departure of most of their female players from their guild&mdash;only to learn that most of said female players had asked to join Soujiro's guild, the West Wind Brigade.

To outsiders looking in on the guild, and even among its own guild master and members, the Black Sword Knights hold a reputation as a bunch of meat-headed idiots. During the Libra Festival, the guild's members tell Isaac to sit down and look pretty because he's useless for dealing with day-to-day affairs, while Isaac finds their obsession with a Raynesia figurine and decision to pool their money to buy one ridiculous. Despite their reputation, most of the members of the guild are in fact good-natured people who value fair-play, tradition, and honor. They were already pretty close before the Catastrophe and often gathered offline for barbecues, touring and other noisy activities.

Because the guild maintained its rigid policies even after the Catastrophe, the number of potential members were limited, making it possible for rival guilds like D.D.D to overtake them in numbers and strength. Combined with the increased difficulty of fighting monsters and the drastic drop of players willing to participate in combat, particularly against difficult monsters, the guild found itself taking more drastic measures to keep up with their competition. They bought low-level players' EXP Holy Water from Hamelin in order to help them breach the level cap. However, these transactions stopped after the formation of the Round Table Alliance and the dissolution of Hamelin.

During the Summer Training Camp held by the Round Table Alliance, several members attended as supervisors, including the guild's quartermaster Rezarick. Most of the members went to Sand Leaf, and Rezarick goes with Nyanta and Naotsugu to Ragranda Forest. They helped in the defense of the group and fought with the other members against the fish goblins.

By the time of the Homesteading the Noosphere arc, they have moved to Maihama, where they are tasked with training the Glass Greave Knights order—interpreted by Isaac as a power-leveling mission—and Isaac himself trains and befriends Iselus, the Prince of Maihama and Raynesia's younger brother. For many reasons, Black Sword Knights became one of the most famous guilds in Eastal League of Free Cities, and even has an organization made up of volunteer Earthlings that support it. It is partially due to the resolute spirit and pride of its members aligning with People of the Earth's views of a "typical hero".

As a result of the Collapse of the Round Table arc, the Black Sword Knights have permanently moved their base of operations to Maihama to show their commitment to Eastal and the Cowen family, with Isaac tasked with looking after Iselus full-time. The guild still remains with the reformed New Round Table Council, however.

Organization
Although the guild technically has an organization structure and chart, most members do whatever they wish and ignore the structure, forcing Rezarick to shoulder all the administrative duties on his own. However, with the implementation of the People of the Earth Support Department, most of the work has been shifted there. The guild also has an external organization, the Black Sword Support Team.

At first when Isaac created the guild, the members were just people from his friend circle so there wasn't actual managing problems. However, after the guild grew in size, many demanded it to open its doors without putting recrutment limitations and Black Sword Knights suffered some bad publicity when it refused to do so, which put a dent on its reputation.

The parties are held together by feelings and moods. The group's slogan is "Let's go hard!" They created policies like creating matching mantles for each member, which was very popular. Each member has a guild tag that looks like the Black Sword of Pain with their own name on it. After the Catastrophe, the produced guild tags of members who weren't logged in are kept by Isaac.

Strength
Though considered arrogant by some, Black Sword Knights is undeniably one of the top battle guilds in Akiba. However, due to their entry restriction, their members are considerably fewer in number compared to other top battle guilds. With this in mind, the guild decided to focus on quality over quantity. Namely, this involved increasing the level of their current membership above the previous 90 maximum level cap. To this end, they utilized low-level player's EXP pots, which they bought from Hamelin.

Members
Former members :
 * Woodstock W (left to establish Grandale after a disagreement with Isaac's philosophy)

Trivia

 * The Yen On official English translation uses "Knights of the Black Sword" rather than "Black Sword Knights." Grammatically speaking, the former is the more logical name, since the guild takes its name after Isaac, the Black Sword.
 * Before Isaac acquired the Black Sword of Pain, the guild went by a different name.