Twins

In the towering mountain fortress, the female assassin with blue-gray hair silently wiped the Dual Blades in her hands. Beside her, the wolf princess was gathering up her black hair beneath a hairnet and dressing in a tight assassin's outfit.

"It snowed heavily last night."

Valentina yawned. Last night, she and her personal guards had sneaked down to the foot of the mountain and stayed up through the entire night. "It should have been a good opportunity, but those damn Englishmen were prepared. They got wary after suffering one setback, didn't leave us a single opening, and there were paladins everywhere, like they were free."

Cherinina raised her brows slightly. "Everyone worked hard."

Valentina smiled and tousled Cherinina's blue-gray hair. "Do you remember our first mission back in Saluzzo?"

"Yes. It snowed heavily that time too. It was the biggest snowfall I'd seen in Italy since I was born."

Cherinina gestured with her hand. "I remember the snow being this deep."

"It snowed even harder after you left. Lothar saw it."

Valentina smiled wistfully. "And it was thanks to that snow that our Special Operation that day went off without a hitch. Back then, we'd only just started out, two little rookies. Now, we're the pillars of two families."

Cherinina replied calmly, "For me, it hasn't been very long."

Valentina bared her little canine teeth in irritation and reached out to knead Cherinina's cheeks. "Yes, you're still the little girl you were when we parted twenty years ago. I'm already old."

Valentina blinked, then grinned wickedly. "But over these twenty years, I haven't neglected my skills."

Cherinina failed to grasp her meaning and looked at her in surprise. "The last time we acted together, your skill... your improvement over the years was only so-so."

She felt that, given the rate