Sword Art Online - Girls Ops Volume 01

Sword Art Online - Girls Ops (ソードアート・オンライン ガールズ・オプス) is a manga spin-off series of the Sword Art Online light novel series by Kawahara Reki. It follows the adventures of Kirigaya Suguha (Leafa), Ayano Keiko (Silica) and Shinozaki Rika (Lisbeth) in both the real world and New ALfheim Online. The ongoing manga is illustrated by Nekobyō Neko and published as part of the bi-monthly Dengeki Bunko Magazine.

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After waking up from a dream, Ayano Keiko was changing to go to school, when she noticed an announcement on her portable terminal. During lunch time at school, she sat down and talked with Rika about the quest that was recently added to new Aincrad and rewarded the «Ring of Angel's Whisper» upon completion. Attracted by the story of this adventure and the reward item, they decided to form a small party to complete the quest. As Kazuto was busy with his study camp and Asuna with her family affairs, Suguha was the only one available. After being told about the quest, she agrees to accompany them on the journey. After preparations are complete, all 3 of the girls entered ALO.

After finding the quest NPC, Suguha is shocked at how much the NPC angel was different from her ideals. Since the girls had completed the first part of the quest, the angel told them to defeat the demonic beast living in the «Abandoned Tower». Along the way to the tower, Silica and Lisbeth started talking about the same quest they had completed in Sword Art Online and how the "demonic beast" turned out to be a giant fluffy bunny with wings, as well as accidentally spoiling quest details to Leafa, who was completing the quest the first time. As they entered the tower, they realized that the monster in the tower was no longer a fluffy bunny, due to Ymir deciding to make the quest after the midway point more difficult. The girls also noticed that a player was already fighting the creature and then realized that the player was Kirito.

Trivia

 * The manga was launched after fans campaigned that the three heroines did not have many appearances in the original light novels.