The Misfits meet System-san

Alice and Bronsen:

Three mornings later, Alice shook Bronsen awake.

"Bronsen, my hair! It's finally straight and down to my shoulders!"

"Urk, what, ah, so it is."

He sat beside her, put one hand around her back, and stroked her hair with the other.

"There, there, kitty cat, you happy now?"

Alice nodded her head, put it against his chest, and began purring.

Bronsen kept patting her head, but after a while, he couldn't resist saying:

"Say, Alice, do you realise you are purring?"

"What! Shit! So I was. We really are cats. Well, cat people. But that's no excuse to stop patting me!"

She went back to purring.

After a while, they swapped over, and with some gentle patting, Alice also got Bronsen purring.

They surveyed their food stores.

"Getting a bit low, and it could be getting a bit off. I suppose we will have to go out and do a bit of hunting. Oh, and did you realise we have a new ability?" said Bronsen.

"Yes, let's try out our improved perception."

By the end of the day, they came home with a couple of Snow Rabbits. They looked like rabbits, only five times bigger, with sharper claws and wickedly curving razor-sharp horns.

"Why are even the herbivores armed to the teeth?" said Bronsen.

"Must be the nature of this place. And, Bronsen, we've got oodles of meat. And we've got a landscape full of snow and ice, but if we try to store our excess meat in it, it will be gobbled up by the local scavengers." said Alice.

"And if we store it inside our cave, the temperature rise caused by our bodies will thaw it out; it will never remain frozen," said Bronsen.

"We need an external fridge, built up with rocks and sealed at the top with more rocks."

Ding! [Stone Masonry] added with an initial 17 points. And [Fireball] increased to 30. You can work it out from here.

"More bullshit abilities," said Alice.

"But... That could be very useful..." said Bronsen.

Three days later, they were well into constructing an entry hall for their cave. By applying their [Fireball] technique, they obtained a thermal lance capable of melting through rock. So, producing large stone masonry blocks kept them busy for a few days.

"It's so amazing how we automatically acquire the skills to know how to shape and lay blocks, isn't it?" said Cassy.

They were currently admiring their efforts. They had smoothed the surface of the cliff face around the entrance and then constructed an archway. This went up on one side, curved over, and down the other. It created a sheltered hallway, with the cave entrance at one end and the opening to the outside at the other. At the moment, it was about three metres long.

The next job was to construct stone doorways for the ends of the hallway. One doorway led into the original cave entrance, and the other led to the outside end of the archway. Thus, to enter the cave proper, they went through the external doorway, travelled along the passage, and entered the doorway to the cave itself.

"Now, how do we make doors?" said Cassy.

They shaped a couple of large boulders into two solid stone blocks, using them as very large, substantial doorway plugs. Getting the 'doors' open and closed was a hassle, but with their strength, it was doable.

So, the next time they went hunting, they stored their excess meat and hides in the passageway, where the temperature was the same as the outside.

"So, now, what do we do to pass the time?" asked Bronsen.

"I've been thinking about that hippo; I think that if it wanted to, it could easily smash down this hallway..." said Cassy.

Bronsen walked around the outside and thought about it.

"Since we have nothing else to do, let's reinforce it. And extend it at the same time."

Having mapped out their leisure time for the next month or so, they got stuck into their self-imposed task with gutso.

Of course, they also went hunting occasionally. And they made love quite a bit more than just occasionally.