Chapter 142: Departure

After fixing our clothes, Sarah and I stepped into the private master bathroom to wash up.

Standing in front of the marble vanity mirror, Sarah splashed cool water onto her face and dried her skin with a soft towel. The flustered, hesitant expression she had carried earlier was completely gone. In its place was a bright smile that seemed to lift a decade of stress off her shoulders.

I leaned against the doorframe, watching her adjust her hair in the mirror. I completely understood her mindset.

Dylan was the absolute center of her world, and she wasn’t ready to throw a complicated, high-society romance into his life while he was still settling down. Finding an arrangement where she could keep her independence, protect her son’s peace, and still have a passionate, deeply loving connection with me gave her the exact balance she needed.

"You look happy," I said with a smile, stepping up behind her and wrapping my arms around her waist.

Sarah tilted her head back against my chest, looking at my reflection with a soft, content gaze. "I am happy, Seth. For the first time in years, I feel like I can breathe."

She turned around in my arms, giving my lips one last quick kiss before smoothing down her beige sweater. "Now come on. We’ve been up here long enough before people start making up rumors."

"They don’t need to make up rumors," I chuckled. "They already know."

[Indeed, they already know that you just banged a milf, not so far away from them. In fact, they could have seen everything. Wait! That’s not right. Those videos are mine.]

I was speechless. ’Are you gonna copyright my porn videos?’

[Yes. But I’m not selling them, Boss. They are mine. I will use them for my personal uses.]

That made curious. ’Aren’t you basically an AI? You can masturbate?’

[Goon Transcends all. It doesn’t limit to physical world alone. Any and everything participates in the concept of goon.]

’All this bullshit just to say you do masturbate?’

[Yes daddy~]

I shook my head.

We left my bedroom suite and walked back down the grand staircase to rejoin the group in the main lounge.

The moment we walked through the double doors, three pairs of sharp eyes immediately snapped in our direction. Yerin sat on the floor near the coffee table, a playful, victorious smirk spreading across her face the second she saw Sarah’s flushed, glowing skin. Sitting on the sofa, Yoona raised her teacup, shooting me a subtle, highly amused glance over the rim. Even Val offered a small, knowing nod from her armchair.

The ladies knew everything already.

Neither Sarah nor I brought up what happened upstairs. We simply sat back down, slipping right back into the easy rhythm of the afternoon.

For the next few hours, we passed the time doing simple, comfortable things. We finished roasting another terrible horror movie, played a few rounds of a card game, and ended up trading hilarious stories from our pasts.

Yerin had us all laughing until our ribs hurt when she told the story of her very first high-society vocal evaluation, where her left shoe kept squeaking loudly right during the quietest, most dramatic high note of her song. Yoona countered with a story about her early mana control lessons, where she accidentally targeted a training mannequin with too much compressed aura and ended up blasting her instructor’s expensive toupee right off his head.

Before we knew it, the golden light of late afternoon faded into the deep indigo hues of early evening.

Yoona set her teacup down on the glass table, checking the sleek silver watch on her wrist. She stood up, smoothing her skirt with an elegant flick of her wrist.

"It’s time," Yoona announced smoothly, looking around the lounge. "The spatial transport array at Avalon Academy opens its landing grid in two hours. We need to head to the airfield now."

Nobody felt sad or heavy. It was a clean, happy departure. We all knew that transferring to Avalon Academy was a necessary, major step forward in my path, and we were all eager to see what lay ahead.

We walked out of the lounge and headed toward the rear of the Fernando estate.

Passing through the massive glass doors of the back terrace, we stepped out onto the estate’s private rear grounds. The backyard was staggering in scale, a flat, perfectly manicured field of green grass that was larger than a full-sized football stadium.

Parked right in the center of the vast lawn was a massive, dark matte military jet. Its hull was crafted from reinforced alloy, etched with glowing silver rune lines that flickered softly against the evening sky.

Dad was already standing near the base of the jet’s boarding ramp, his hands folded behind his back.

As we walked up, Dad offered us a warm, firm smile. "Everything is prepared for your departure. Your primary luggage, travel gear, and daily essentials have already been packed into personal spatial storage rings."

Reaching into his jacket pocket, Dad pulled out two polished silver rings, handing one to me and the other to Yerin. "These are high-capacity spatial rings. Simply channel a small trace of your mana to access your items."

Val and Yoona already had their own specialized spatial rings on their fingers, fully packed and ready to go. I took the silver ring, sliding it onto my index finger and feeling the subtle spatial expansion rune humming inside the metal.

"Thanks, Dad," I said, stepping forward to give him a firm hug.

Dad clapped his hand over my back, his voice carrying a quiet, proud weight. "Have a safe journey, son. Study hard, cultivate your strength, and remember who you are."

"I will," I nodded.

I turned around to face Mom, who was practically vibrating with emotional warmth. The moment our eyes met, she stepped in, wrapping her arms tightly around my neck and pulling me into a fierce motherly hug. She pressed two warm kisses onto both of my cheeks, holding my shoulders tightly.