Joe

Although I'm late i wanted to comment on this. Why is everyone surprised?

This is what happens when you train your audience on nothing but instant-gratification. SL up until this episode did nothing but one thing, give SJW aura farming with the most generic boring plotline. No substance. No depth. No side characters. No high stakes because since the Igris fight he has been stomping everybody.

This is like if you give your 10 years old kid a PS5 and allow him to play all the time and then you're surprised by his anger the moment you ask him to study, go out and play outside or do anything other than sit and play the damn PS5.

SL filtered out the viewers who are into these scenes from the beginning of the series, including me. I dropped the series very early. Boring as hell to me. MC getting stronger and stronger. 90% of the dialogue is his inner monologue talking about his abilities, his stats and edgy things like 'I lost my humanity' and 'I don't care'

Who will stick with the series then? The audience that is there for nothing but aura farming... So the moment the aura farming disappears, of course you will get this reaction.

The SL die hard fans that disliked this episode are the same ones who can't sit through a full episode of shows like Violet Evergarden, Frieren, Ghibli movies and WMT old gems ( they don't know the last one, they are 10 years old or new to the anime and it's sad that SL is their entry gate).