Chaos

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

Spiraling Troubles
Shiroe believes that the People of the Earth led by the newly-arrived Lord Malves, a merchant nobleman from Westelande, are responsible for attacking Akiba and that 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 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 Calasin'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 Earth but has difficulty discerning a pattern from their seemingly random actions until he finally realizes that the People are actually improvising on the spot.

Defusing Discord
Pressed to come up with a solution, Shiroe gets a spark of genius after meeting Soujiro who has won the cake contest with the help of his guild. In the meantime, 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. The group then learn of the banquet disturbance and decide to make the festival enjoyable as their true counterattack.

Malves's Offensive
Scenes of Raynesia and Elissa supervising the Twilight Banquet appear throughout the episode. It is explained that its goal is to deepen relationship with Adventurers and that Malves attendance was not expected.

Troubles arise when they receive news of Malves arriving at the banquet with a ship full of seafood needing immediate storage. Followed by bodyguards, he tells Raynesia he send all the necessary paper and even received an answer, though nor Raynessia nor the Round Table knew of such matter (it is latter shown to be a lie to discredit the Cowen family and Eastal).

The episode end as Shiroe finally makes an appearance at the banquet.