After two brilliant face paced episodes, we slow down again. Some valuable material is covered in this episode; the secret of the flavour text is discussed, although it was covered briefly in the previous episode. This secret is now linked to the mass murder. Akatsuki is now working with her friends and seems surprisingly weak, which is very odd.
Akatsuki was regarded by Shiro as very effective, so why she is suddenly proving inferior to many other members of DDD and West Wind brigade is a mystery. After all she was almost as powerful as Soujirou in the fight against the mass murderer. The search for the oral art is the plot line which should have been focused on, because that is one area she lacks. But her general fighting skill was without peer. In episode one we see her stat's, Lv.90, HP of 9873 and MP of 9771. Shiro claims she is a top notch assassin and states he was in a coupled of raiding parties with her before.
I think in season two they try to down play this for some reason, to try and focus on character development. I think it was unnecessary, just focus on Akatsuki missing shiro, gaining oral arts, trusting other players and getting revenge. Its also possible the translations was not exact. I often first watch an episode in Japanese before moving on to the dubbed version and very often get puzzled when the English does not match my memory. Its only minor things and often due to the fan service getting a bit much for English audiences, but I noticed in an episode of jorgungand where the changes in dialogue totally changed the situation. I will need t0o go back and watch the Japanese version one day to confirm.
While slow paced and with a lot of filler, its still an enjoyable watch.