Alice and Bronsen:

Several weeks before Cassy and Drayden started down the Manifestorian stairwell:

“Bronsen! This enhanced body still feels fantastic, even after half a year or so of living in it!” said Alice.

They were running across the landscape, heading diagonally towards the wall, moving at speeds that would have been impossible for an average human. Using [Inspect], they knew that the part of the wall they were heading towards was 150km away.

“We should be there in just a couple of days!” said Bronsen.

Towards the end of the first day, "Bronsen? Isn't there a lot of animal tracks appearing compared to what we have seen before?"

"Yeah, there is. The tracks are converging; it's almost a highway!"

They stopped.

"Does that mean that at the end of this highway, we might come across all the animals that made the tracks?" said Alice.

"That's... slightly alarming."

At this point, they heard some noises behind them - the noise of hooves galloping across the ground.

"Oh dear," said Bronsen.

They turned ninety degrees away from the tracks, towards the wall. And also towards one of the occasional hills they had been passing. They ran like all hell was after them. This was an exaggeration; only three or four giant, almost fat, monsters after them. Nowhere as bad as all hell.

"Alice, we need to run faster!"

Breaking all Earth-side running records for distances up to ten kilometres, they streaked across the landscape, heading for high ground. The monsters pursued them for a while, and then they slowed down.

Alice and Bronsen, panting like mad, also took the opportunity to slow down.

"What are they doing?" Bronsen.

It appeared the monsters were either deciding that two small Felixians weren't worth the effort, or they were too impatient to return to their overriding goal. Eventually, they veered and started to gallop towards their original direction.

"This hill is higher than most around here; what say we go to the top of it and have a look?" said Bronsen.

A little while later, they enjoyed the scenic view from the crown of a hundred-and-fifty-metre-high hill. It was the usual snow-covered expanse with trees, hills, and rocks everywhere. Most interestingly, the ground in the anticlockwise direction was flat and dipped into a vast depression, perhaps ten kilometres across. There were many tracks converging to the centre, and here and there were little clusters of monsters, all moving inwards.

"Wait a minute, something is screwy here," said Bronsen.

"Yeah, if all the tracks converge to the centre, and all the monsters are moving towards the centre, what happens to them at the centre?" said Alice.

They watched one of the mobs that was closest to the centre. Their enhanced perception made it easy to see the five animals, even if they were no more than five dots at their distance. When the monsters got to the centre, they disappeared from view.

"There must be a cave entrance there," said Bronsen.

Alice started laughing.

"No! It's the entrance to a dungeon!"

"Sorry?"

Alice spent a few minutes filling him in on dungeons in Isekai's.

"So, they are the spawning point for lots of nasty animals, and adventurers go into them to have fun hunting them and perhaps getting killed by them?"

"Hmm, putting it that way does make it sound a bit peculiar. Ah, but every Alternative World's dungeon system differs depending on the author's aims."

"Well, I can see one difference here - the monsters are going back into their dungeon," said Bronsen.

Alice donned a big shit-eating grin, shrugged her shoulders, and said, "Well, whatever. Obviously, this isn't a typical Isekai world. And, presumably, there is nothing to gain by entering a dungeon."

'Inspect', went Bronsen.

Ding! Yep, it's a dungeon entrance. And, yep, dungeons in this world are not your typical Isekai dungeon.

"Oh, thanks, System-san. You have merely told us what we have just worked out," said Alice.

Not getting any reply, they looked at the wall.

"Hey, the wall isn't perfectly uniform. There appear to be rectangular marks up its side, but only in one location," said Alice.

"Well, that direction is opposite the dungeon entrance, so let's go for it."

They went for it. They only had to run like crazy to avoid monsters two or three times. It was good exercise, for sure.

Like Drayden and Cassy, they rapidly made their way up, snacking on a few fat birds in the first recess. They expressed amazement at the ballroom halfway up.

"What on Earth is it for? I mean, on Ringworld," said Bronsen.

"Perhaps... Felixian orgies?" said Alice.

Bronsen spluttered a bit. "Since when did you start making such lewd suggestions?"

"Well, since I started a relationship with you?"

"Anyway, I think it is completely impractical for orgies. I mean, travelling hundreds of kilometres across the surface, then up twenty-five kilometres, that's a lot of energy spent. And how could a small collection of ballrooms service a billion people?"

"OK, I admit, it was a facetious answer. And, sadly, even if they did have orgies here, we can never join in," said Alice.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

"All in all, I think that is probably just as well."

"Of course, the simplest explanation is that it's a rest spot. Climb twenty-five kilometres, camp out in relaxation on a wide flat surface, then resume climbing," said Bronsen.

"Ahh, that's such a boring explanation. I much prefer my orgy explanation," said Alice.

"Say, if only two people do it, is it still an orgy?"

"Hmm, let's try it and find out!"

They continued the climb after allocating enough time to investigate that urgent question.

Once at the top, they admired the view.

The dungeon entrance and the tracks radiating out from it were visible. The cliff face containing their cave residence was barely visible in the distance.

"One day, some adventurers are going to come across our original home and wonder who the hell made it," said Bronsen.

"It will lighten up their day, I'm sure. And, more to the point, let's do some planning."

"If we run anticlockwise from here, and if there are other staircases not too far apart, then we can stop at each one, descend, get more water and a few birds for roasting, then climb back up and keep going," said Bronsen.

"But, that means climbing down and up fifty kilometres each time," said Alice.

Bronsen nodded his head to acknowledge this.

"It also means we avoid any chances of meeting any more monsters. Or, for matter, normal animals like that Lesser Grass Eating Hippoxilla."

"Count me it! I love climbing a fifty-kilometre-high staircase!" said Alice.

Bronsen smiled at this.

The staircases were about a hundred (Earth) kilometres apart. Allowing for time to run from one to the other, to go down, slaughter a few innocent birds, and get back up, they took between a week and a week and a half to do each section. They weren't hurrying and often took time to admire the view. And, of course, to make love.

The weather progressively got warmer, and the floor of the Ringworld got greener.

"About time we got out of that perpetual cold," said Bronsen.

Four weeks in, they realised there were some changes to their stats.

"[Forensic Pathology]?" said Alice, "What's that for?"

"Who knows."

And a few days after that.

"Hey, all of our allocatable stats have been maxed out! Wow! And they still have more than three hundred points left over. Just what have they been doing?" said Bronsen.

"I don't know. But they seem to be having a much more exciting time than we are."

They spent half a day playing around with their new weapons.

"We must be the strongest warriors on the planet! Err, I mean the Ringworld," said Alice.

"We're the overpowered protagonists!" said Bronsen.

"Onwards and upwards!" said Alice.

"Roundwards?" said Bronsen.

"Whatever."

By that afternoon, they had almost reached the next staircase when they found some people. Three people in all. They were all lying on the ground. One of them, a man, was quite dead. He had a broken-off spear jutting out of his shoulder blade. The other two were a woman and a young teenager. They weren't dead, but they seemed strangely immobile. They also had grey collars around their necks.

And their skin colour was two-tone, with the woman having three tones. But Alice and Bronsen decided to ignore that for the time being.

"Oh shit, what can we do about this?" said Alice.

They gave a glance at the man, and their [Frosenic Pathology] ability presented them with the information that he was dead, probably due to the trauma of having a spear through him. It also gave them enough clues to deduce that the spear had been there for a month or more.

"How is that possible? Unless he had some form of regeneration, but not as much as we do," said Bronsen.

They turned to the still-living, took a few steps towards them, and then gagged at the stench.

"Oh," said Bronsen.

It was evident that both the woman and the young teenage girl had soiled themselves; there were ugly brown stains around their slacks, and they were lying in a puddle of urine.

Alice gulped hard, turned up her [Emotional Control], and made herself walk over the mostly dried urine, squatted down, and looked at the two. Bronsen did the same, although he didn't get quite as close. Alice looked at the woman first.

"Her lips are cracked. She's highly stressed, has trouble breathing, and is too weak to sit up," said Alice.

"Bronsen, they're both dehydrated; I suggest that is the first thing we tackle."

The teenagers didn't have any water with them (that's why they had to go down each staircase to get some). But fortunately, the group had their own supplies in a lightweight cart. Stepping around the dead man, Bronsen was only too happy to get away from the stink. He rummaged through the meagre belongings.

"There's not much here besides some packets of food, utensils, clothes, and, yes!"

He came back with a water canteen, about half full, holding about five litres. He poured a small amount into a cup.

"Why aren't they moving?" he said.

The young girl was barely conscious, but the woman was fully aware of them. Her eyes tracked Alice and then Bronsen, but she made no further efforts at interaction.

So, while Alice propped up the woman - getting her knees dirty - Bronsen carefully poured a small amount of water into the woman's mouth. She swallowed after some struggle.

"My... daughter..." she said. Or, more correctly, croaked, with much panting and struggling.

Bronsen had no choice but to kneel on the ground next to the girl, prop her up and gently give her a small teaspoon of water. The girl, probably barely conscious, managed to swallow some. She then started coughing. Bronsen put the cup down, put his arms around her and leant her forward. He then very lightly thumped her back.

Bronsen also got dried shit on his feet and knees but didn’t complain about it.

They kept on giving them water at a slow rate. At a similarly slow rate, the mother and daughter began to show some signs of energy.

Alice was trying to communicate with the mother.

"Hello, can you hear us?"

But she didn't get any reply.

"Bronsen, they must be sick or something. We'll have to look after them."

"Of course."

"And, we're going to have to clean them up - wait, how are we going to do that? We don't have any cleaning rags, nor much water, nor, ah, pads; oh, the mother has had a period."

“Ah, that's what those red stains are from,” said Bronsen.

Fighting to keep their composure because the two patients were perfectly aware of their surroundings even if they weren't communicating; Alice and Bronsen spent an unpleasant hour cleaning them up. Naturally, Alice was the one to change their clothes, which meant that Bronsen had to be the one to get rid of the shit (by picking it up with his shovel and tossing it over the inner side rail); he also managed to find enough cloth in the cart to make improvised nappies for them.

Two hours later, the two patients were reasonably clean, rehydrated, and fed a small amount of dried food. They were not sleeping, but the teenagers had made them comfortable.

Bronsen and Alice sat down and caught their breaths.

"I've got shit on my hands but no way of cleaning it off," whispered Bronsen.

"Yeah."

"Those grey collars must be slave collars, right?"

"I suppose so. Inspect," said Alice.

Ding! That's right. Grey means they were the lowest in the hierarchy. The man was a blue-collar, which is much higher.

"So, System-san, why are they unresponsive?"

No reply.

"OK. Then the object under the man's neck must have been his blue-collar, only it is now black, and it appears to have fallen off," said Bronsen.

"Hey, remember, there's a hundred points for each collar we destroy, as long as it's not in use," said Alice.

"That's right. In that case - "

Bronsen went to the cart and used a folded-over piece of clothing to pick up three more inert slave collars. He put them on the ground next to the first collar.

"Do you think touching them with your hands is dangerous?" said Alice.

"Wouldn't have a clue. But it's better to be safe rather than sorry. Now, how do we destroy them?"

"Thermal lance, of course."

Five minutes later, four scorch marks and four piles of sand-like material were on the ground.

"Bloody hell, those things are tough!" said Bronsen.

Ding! Four hundred points were awarded for destroying four slave collars. Good work, kids!

"Cassy and Drayden are still beating us - argh!" said Alice.

Alice and Bronsen jumped up when they saw another man, definitely alive and well, standing ten metres away from them and watching them. Almost by reflex, they leapt over their two patients and stood between them and the strange man.

In return, the man just scratched his head, smiled at them, and said,

"Hello. Sorry I didn't introduce myself immediately, but I needed to see what you did with the slave collars first."

"You did?" said Bronsen.

"Why?" said Alice.

At this, the man looked puzzled, "You don't know?"

"No?"

Looking as if he didn't quite believe this, he said, "Because a slave, no matter what rank, will never destroy a collar, nor leave one behind. It's always one of their initial commands."

"Ah, so when we destroyed the collars..." said Alice.

"I was greatly relieved. Of course, I already knew you weren't slaves since you didn't have collars on."

"Ah, I'm sure we have lots more questions, but I'm Bronsen, and this is Alice."

"Hello! I'm Aragon."