One turn, thousand rolls.

While Mark and Eve wasted their brains thinking about the baldness that had yet to arrive, Eleven discovered a huge oscillation on the radar.

"Four, it seems like we catch a trail!"

Four, plus everyone in the bridge aside from Echo, screamed out loud from surprise and joy.

"REALLY!?"

"Yeah, yeah, stop acting like captain and confirming everything I say! I will pass you the vector on the terminal, act fast or we will lose them!"

"Right!"

Receiving the coordinates Four pulled the stick with precision and abruptly changed the course of the ship. The change was so abrupt that despite space bubble canceling most of the G-Force influencing the ship, everybody onboard along with all unfixed objects flew to the walls. Luckily everybody in the bridge was wearing sit-belts so none of them got hurt.... as for the others....

--//--

Lounge.

Two, Three and Seven were still playing cards.

Despite Mark's prank, Three's luck had suddenly improved and he was close to winning the game. The deck only had 10 cards left and he was leading the game by more than 20 points.

10..9..8..7...

The cards were drawn one by one but Three didn't make any extra effort to win more points. His victory was all but assured and he was now only waiting for the last card to be drawn. Because of the points difference it was impossible for anyone to beat him so all that was left was the fight for second and third place.

6...5...!!!!!

On the moment the next card was drawn, a huge g force suddenly pulled everything from the ground.

Three watched in slow motion as all the cards flew before him, spreading around in the air as his body was thrown against the wall. His mouth moved slowly trying to force a scream of protest out of his lungs but before he could do it, he his back collided on the lounge's wall, making all air vanish from his lungs, denying even his scream.

Two and Seven were almost just as lucky, suffering similar damages to Three. The only difference between them was that now the two had a valid excuse to insist on a rematch. Whether Three liked or not, the game had not ended and now that all cards had spread around there was no way to calculate the points and decide on the winner, even if seconds before it was obvious who would win.

--//--

Kitchen.

Nine and Fourteen made a real mess on the kitchen, but this much was just as expected considering they were preparing food for 53 people.

Luckily for them their job ended here and the ones responsible for cleaning the kitchen were the numbers twenty and twenty one.

Slowly getting up from their table, Twenty and Twenty one walked with heavy step to the kitchen. Nine and Fourteen greeted them at the entrance and wished them good luck before preparing to get out of the way.

Unfortunately for everybody there, this was the moment the ship made the turn.

Nine and Fourteen suddenly were thrown over the other two with no chance to react or protest. The four collided against each other and the wall in a flashy collision where Nine's elbow hit Twenty One's belly, making him throw up food all over the place.

--//--

ISCA Garage

Different from most parts of the ship, the artificial gravity was turned off inside the ISCA Garage to facilitate material transportation.

That's why all numbers inside where wearing magnetic boots that fixed themselves against the walls and all heavy stuff had layers of security to fix it in place.

And that's also why no one got hurt when the sudden change took place.

Aside from a most people losing balance and felling on their butt, the only dangerous accident that happened was Twenty Two accidentally throwing a screwdriver at Twenty Seven and Twenty Seven dodging it by a hair's breadth as he fell on the floor.

--//--

Game room

On the day they departed Mark had delegated Ten the task of making the children open up their emotions.

How to do that? It was up to Ten to decide.

Ten thought that maybe if he stimulated their emotions by playing games. Unfortunately his attempts with cards and other games were unsuccessful.

Looking for new ideas, Ten arrived at the storage room and started searching around for anything that could give him a clue.

After hours of search the Goddess of Luck finally smiled to him, finding him an inflatable bounce house.

Why the hell was this inside the spaceship was a complete mystery, but Ten payed no mind and thanked his luck and decided to install it in the game room.

His thanks slowly turned into curses as he discovered he could only use a manual air pump to inflate the bounce house.

It was a never ending job and he started to guess that maybe this was some masochistic kind of punishment that the ex-captain of this ship reserved for the crew who messed up big time.

Even so, having nothing better to do, Ten spent most of his time inflating the bounce house and after hours of work and litters of sweat he was finally close to finishing the job.

Unfortunately there are things in this World that are just not meant to be, and as Ten approached the inflated bounce house to unplug the air pump from the valve, the turn happened, throwing not only him but 15 small children as well against the fully inflated bounce house, making all air escape as it cushioned their impact.

--//--

Observatory

Mark and Eve were currently discussing about methods to prevent baldness.

Mark was still confused on how their talk ended up reaching this point.

His whole intentions for talking to Eve was to try to make her integrate better with the rest of the crew, but somehow in the middle of the conversation the focus changed to himself and finally to a possible bald future that may lie ahead.

Well, who cares if there is baldness waiting for him in the future!? What he should be really worried about is if he had really reincarnated into a Mid-Boss, right?

Unfortunately Eve didn't agree. To her, it didn't matter if Mark was the Mid-Boss, Early-Boss or even Last-Boss, but the fact that he would turn bald mattered! Maybe too much, actually.

"Shut up and let me see how bad the situation has progressed!"

Taking the last bite of the last rice cake in the tray, Eve got up and walked behind Mark.

Feeling the sudden authoritarian aura emanating from her, Mark held back his protests and allow her to do as she pleased.

Eve put the tip of her fingers on Mark's hair and slowly combed to the side.

"Oh no! It has already progressed this much!!"

Her words awoke Mark's curiosity and even a bit of fear.

"Eh? Really? How bad is it?"

The girl kept combing Mark's hair from one side to the other, investigating all his scalp from left to right.

"Really bad! Actually I think you don't have much time left!"

"Ha!?"

"Look at all this hair, it's so thin and weak, a little pull is all it takes for it to fall like this!"

As she finished her phrase Eve pulled out a few hair strands in a single pull.

"Aaaaahh!!!!!!!! What are you doing!?!?"

"Hahahahaha! I got you! Look who became bald? This is my revenge for that slap in my ass earlier!"

Laughing her heart out, Eve showed mark the few hair strands that she pulled out.

"You little ...!!!"

Getting up at once, Mark started chasing Eve. As for Eve, the moment she saw his face, she already knew it was time to run away.

Of course Mark didn't use his full speed to chase her, only using a common human speed to not destroy their game.

Even so Eve was not used to running and soon run out of breath, giving a chance for Mark caught her by the wrist, not allowing her to run away.

Mark pulled her close and used his other hand to hold her back. The two faced stared at each other's eyes and silent took over the room.

Mark observed Eve's flushed face, her pinky lips trembling and her eyes staring right at him.

Mark slowly close the distance and...

No, the ship didn't turn just yet. Actually Eve woke up from her dazzled state and headbutted him with all her strength!

"Why did you do that!?"

"Shut up, Mr. pervert! Don't think I don't know what you were going to do!"

"Oh yeah? Then tell me what I was going to do to you."

"You were going to..."

"Yeah?"

"Ki..."

"Ki?"

"Kyaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!"

The world suddenly turned, for a second both started floating in the air.

Mark's mind run at light speed, slowing down the world around them.

He noticed the wall rapidly approaching them from behind Eve, so he followed his instincts and pulled Eve to him making both change place, then he held her firm and used his legs to fall standing against the wall.

The impact was strong but his legs held up.

For a moment it was like Mark was standing over the wall, then gravity reverted back and even Mark was unable to react on time, falling right on top of Eve who was being tightly help in his arms.

Eve opened her eyes and saw Mark's face close to hers.

With a blushing face, she reacted instinctively and pushed him away, only to notice it was impossible since Mark's hands were strongly holding her against his body.

"So, what am I going to do now?"

Eve's mind went berserk, thousands possibilities ran through her head, not knowing what to do she did the first thing that came to her mind: She lifted her hand slowly closing to his face, then when her hand reached his cheek it slowly moved back to his ear, and then she pinched it with all her strength!

"Ouch! Ouch! Ouch! Okay! I give up! I will let go! I will let go!!!"

"Hmph! Don't you dare to try that again!"

"Yes, princess! Whatever you say!" (At least for now...)

"I can hear that!"

"Ohh.." (Damn it! I really need to find a way to block my thoughts from being read...)

--//--

Arriving back at the bridge, Mark was greeted by everybody's stares.

"What?"

"So, did she slap you?"

"Of course not!" (She actually pinched my ear instead!)

Hearing his thoughts the whole numbers crew started to laugh.

"Just wait! I will get her!"

"Sure you will, Captain! Good luck with that!"

"Yeah, as they say, luck on games is inversely proportional to your luck on love life, maybe this is the result for you always winning our matches!"

"Shut up Four! You say that because you suck at games!"

"All right, all right, now stop chatting and tell me what the hell was that!"

"Oh, we found it!"

Mark's eyes went wide open in surprise, then a huge smile took over his lips and he screamed blowing out all air from his lungs.

"REALLY!?"

"Yeah! Why else do you think I would do such a crazy turn? Did you thought we were attacked or something?"

"No, actually I didn't even consider guessing why. I just headed here directly as soon as I could."

"But not before receiving a pinch in the ear from our house's princess."

"Shut up! So, who did you find?"

"It seems like a big cruiser spaceship. It's almost half as big as this ship."

"Wow! Great! The best of all, it's not pirates!"

"Why would you be worried about pirates? With all the I.S.C.A.s inside this ship, I bet we could even take on a pirate lair."

"No! Not even close. In the game the pirate lairs all had top notch I.S.C.A.s protecting it. If our mob I.S.C.A.s were to get close we would be defeated in the blink of an eye!"

"Are you crazy? These are military equipment! How could they lose to pirates!?"

"Well, that's how it was in the game. Thinking back now it doesn't make much sense..."

"Maybe it's because it would be too easy?"

"Balancing? Hmm... It was a game, so that could be it... but it makes no sense for such a thing to happen on reality..."

"So you think they don't have it?"

"Who knows? Actually I'm not really eager to find out."

(Anyway, why are we discussing pirates? What we have here looks like a common cruiser ship to me.)

"Echo is right, we got a bit side tracked. Let's talk about what we have here. So, did you find it's trail? Can you catch up to it?"

"Yeah, we got it. We should be able to catch up in a few hours."

"Hours!?"

"Well, they got a good head start and their speed is close to our own. We could catch up faster but it will waste a lot more energy, and since we don't know how long we would have to travel, I don't think it's a good idea."

"All right then. Let's go with this... Actually keep a distance from them, keep us outside their radars."

"Hmm?? Why?"

"Just imagine, you are on a cruiser traveling, maybe even relaxing on vacation, when suddenly a military ship twice your cruiser size appears by the window..."

"Oh!"

"There is no need for us to gift them free heart attacks. We just want to go back to civilized space, so let's keep ourselves hidden and stalk them quietly."

"Aye aye captain!"