Rika Shinozaki

Shinozaki Rika (篠崎 里香, Shinozaki Rika), known as Lisbeth (リズベット, Rizubetto) in «Sword Art Online» (SAO), «ALfheim Online» (ALO), and «Project Alicization», is a supporting character in the Aincrad Arc, one of the main characters of the Girls Ops spinoff, along with Kirigaya Suguha (Leafa) and Ayano Keiko (Silica), and a reoccurring character throughout the Sword Art Online series. She is one of the 10,000 players who were trapped in Sword Art Online, where she became a blacksmith and opened up her own store in Lindarth. After Sword Art Online was cleared, Rika began playing ALfheim Online with her friends as a Leprechaun blacksmith. During the course of the game, she opened a new blacksmith store in Yggdrasil City.

Appearance
Rika has brown hair in the real world and she used to have brown hair in the early days of Sword Art Online, until she later customized it to fluffy pink with a white hairpin (red in a light novel volume 2 colored illustration). In Sword Art Online, Lisbeth's eyes are dark blue (dark pink in the anime). Her blacksmith uniform looks more like the uniform of a waitress: a dark red top with puffed sleeves and a flared skirt of the same color, combined with a pure white apron on top of it, as well as a red ribbon atop her chest. In both the game world and the real world, she has small freckles on her cheeks.

Lisbeth's avatar in ALO is similar to her appearance in SAO: she has pink hair, wears a red and white dress and also has brown boots. The only difference is that she has pointy ears, and her wings appear to be mechanical as she chose the Leprechaun race. In battle, she wields a one-handed spike mace and a small round shield.

Personality
Lisbeth is a very friendly person that can get along with just about everyone she meets. She is hardworking and takes great pride in her abilities as a blacksmith. She will become very defensive and aggressive if someone were to challenge her pride as a blacksmith much like Kirito did after accidentally breaking the best sword she had created. She has a bad temper and can get somewhat violent, such as when she grabbed Kirito by the collar after he broke one of her best swords. Lisbeth is very teasing as well.

Background
Initially starting as a street vendor living at an inn, Lisbeth grew interested in a moderately-sized house with a waterwheel in Lindarth while exploring the city in January 2024. Working hard from that point on to accumulate the necessary Cor, she managed to purchase the deed before her competitors and opened the workshop as Lisbeth's Smith Shop in March 2024.

On June 24, 2024, Lisbeth was visited by Asuna to perform maintenance on the latter's Lambent Light. Teasing Asuna about meeting a boy, she listened to her description of him before proceeding to sharpen the blade. Despite teasing the Flash, Lisbeth secretly felt envy due to the fencer finding a potential boyfriend, and wondered if she would ever find someone who would care for her as well.

The next day on June 25, Lisbeth was having a dream of an experience she had during elementary school in the real world when she was visited by Kirito, who came to purchase a custom sword similar to his current one. Though initially skeptical of his appearance and equipment, she became impressed by the high quality of the monster drop weapon. Thus, she offered her best sword, which was designed for speed. Shocked and angered when he accidentally broke her best sword while testing its durability versus the Elucidator, she vowed to create a weapon that would surpass his blade.

Therefore, Lisbeth informed Kirito of a quest on the 55th Floor in which a crystal eating dragon produced a rare metal that she could use to craft a great sword. However, as the metal was rumored to drop only when a blacksmith was in the party, she insisted on accompanying him on the quest. After gathering her equipment and supplies, she closed her store and followed Kirito to the 55th Floor, all the while wondering how she had gotten herself into her current situation.

When the party arrived on the 55th Floor, Lisbeth found herself unprepared for the cold climate, thus she received a thick mantle from Kirito to keep herself warmth. After finding the quest giver Non-Player Character (NPC) and accepting the quest, they began heading for the frost dragon's lair on the West Mountain. When the pair reached the area by sunset, Lisbeth was ordered by Kirito to prepare her items and hide the moment the dragon appeared. The blacksmith initally protested but acquiesced upon seeing the swordsman's seriousness and genuine concern for her safety. Lisbeth quickly hid behind one of the crystal pillars in the area as X'rphan the White Wyrm emerged from a nearby large and deep hole in the ground.

As Kirito engaged X'rphan in combat, Lisbeth became astonished at the swordsman's fighting skills, and pondered about his identity. When X'rphan's hit points were reduced to critical levels, she stepped from behind the pillar to urge Kirito to finish the battle. At that moment, Lisbeth was assailed by the boss' blizzard attack, which blew her over the hole the dragon had come from. Just as she began to fall, she was grabbed by Kirito, who slowed their descent and shielded her from most of the damage from the fall. After landing, Lisbeth accepted a potion from Kirito to recover her hit points, before wondering how they could escape from their situation. As their position was both a dungeon and an Anti-Crystal Zone, they could neither contact their acquaintances with a message nor use a crystal to teleport.

Having resigned to the predicament for the night, Lisbeth watched as Kirito prepared a simple dinner and sleeping bags for them. After the meal, she listened to stories of his adventures on the front lines and inquired why he had risked his life to save her when he could have died failing to do so. Touched by his sincere reply that he would rather die with someone than let them die in front of him due to inaction, the blacksmith was overwhelmed by loneliness and asked to hold his hand. When he accepted her request, she held onto it as she fell asleep.

After awaking the next morning on June 26, Lisbeth and Kirito found a Crystallite Ingot, the material they had originally been searching for, buried in the snow covering the bottom of the pit. The duo deduced that the rare metal had been produced by the dragon as its excrement, meaning that they were in its nest. Having stored the ingot, Lisbeth resumed contemplating on a method to escape from the hole, when she remembered that X'rphan would be returning to its nest soon, as it was nocturnal.

Just as Lisbeth prepared herself to fight against the dragon when it landed, she was suddenly grabbed by Kirito as he raced behind the boss and seized its tail. While she held onto the swordsman, the two were carried by X'rphan out of the pit and into the air, before Kirito released his grip on the dragon. Having safely landed with their ingot, the pair began their return journey to the smith shop.

Once Lisbeth and Kirito arrived at the former's store, the blacksmith began crafting a sword from the Crystallite Ingot, resolving to confess her feelings to the boy if she succeeded in forging a weapon he would be satisfied with. After the ingot transformed into a white sword, Lisbeth waived payment for her services in exchange for becoming the swordsman's personal blacksmith.

In August, 2024, Lisbeth was visited by Kirito to reinforce his Dark Repulser +39 to +40. Lisbeth wondered to herself why he would go to such effort to upgrade his sword when it would have been considerably easier to find a new weapon that could match his current blade's stats. During the enhancement process, the blacksmith stopped hammering the Dark Repulser and expressed her fear that once the blade's reinforcement attempts were exhausted, Kirito would no longer have a reason to see her anymore. Upon being told of his belief that the Dark Repulser was meant to be used against the last boss of Aincrad, Lisbeth felt encouraged enough to complete the upgrade. After managing to successfully enhance the sword's sharpness, she professed her hope to not undergo such a stressful reinforcement attempt for a while, only to be asked to upgrade his Elucidator +39 to +40 as well.

On November 7, 2024, Lisbeth had finished her quota of orders for the day and was considering what to eat for lunch when Hanna Heinemann, the NPC tending her store, suddenly vanished. Shocked, she left the building and heard the system announcement of the game being cleared. After a few seconds of stunned silence, she realized that only Kirito could have done such a feat despite the front lines being at the 75th Floor and declared her love for him at the top of her lungs, swearing to see him again.

After the ALfheim Online incident, Rika began attending a school established for the survivors of SAO who were still students, and made a pact with Ayano Keiko that they would give Kirigaya Kazuto (Kirito) and Yuuki Asuna (Asuna) one month together without interfering before they made their individual moves on him. However, by May 16, 2025, after seeing how close Asuna had gotten with Kazuto, with the two of them having lunch together, the two girls quickly regretted forming the pact. After school, Rika and the other SAO survivors gathered early at the Dicey Cafe for the Aincrad Conquest Celebration party, in order to give Asuna and Kazuto a special welcome. At 23:00 that evening, Rika logged into ALO for the afterparty at Yggdrasil City, flying with the others towards the newly-implemented New Aincrad when it appeared in the game just after midnight.

Extra Edition
On July 25, 2025, Rika joined Asuna and Keiko at the SAO Survivor School to help in teaching Suguha how to swim. During the training, she teased the girls, especially Keiko and Suguha, and commented on their swimsuits and body image, as well as their relations with Kirito. Later she joined Kirito and friends for the «Deep Sea Plunderers» quest in ALO.

Phantom Bullet Arc
Lisbeth and her friends gathered on the night of December 14, 2025 at Asuna's rented house in the new «Yggdrasil City » to watch the «Bullet of Bullets» tournament in Gun Gale Online in which Kirito was participating. She later joined Kazuto, Asuna, and Andrew at the Dicey Cafe to meet Asada Shino (Sinon), striking up a conversation about the weapons in GGO that can be used or created, before introducing the latter to Oosawa Sachie and Mizue.

Calibur
On December 25, 2025, after aiding Kirito in obtaining Excalibur, Lisbeth was given Mjölnir, Thor's hammer, by Klein, under the condition that she did not reduce it to components.

Mother's Rosario
On January 6, 2026 at the Forest House K4, Lisbeth asked Asuna if the latter had ever heard of Absolute Sword.

Trivia

 * Lisbeth's blacksmith uniform was actually chosen by Asuna, who claimed that stiff clothes did not suit her baby face. After Lisbeth started wearing the suggested uniform, her sales jumped twofold, which is why she reluctantly kept wearing it. Asuna also advised Lisbeth to dye her hair pink.
 * Lisbeth's B-W-H measurements in the web version were 86-64-85.
 * In the Blu-ray/DVD package volume 3, the character song CD featured Lisbeth (Takagaki Ayahi) singing "Cheer! Tear? Cheer!!" as the 4th Character Song for this series.
 * Rika's English voice actress also voices Kozuki Yuniko (Scarlet Rain) from Accel World.