Does the "fundamental group of the circle" part use anything specifically from homotopy type theory as opposed to any other type theory?
Having the fundamental groupoid of the circle be the integers requires the universe to be a 1-type or higher. There are some type theories that have that without full univalence (e.g. this [0]), but it'll definitely have a HoTT flavor with non-identity paths.
[0] Two-dimensional models of type theory: https://arxiv.org/abs/0808.2122
But, I suspect the idea involves like, using the idea of equivalences from the type theory as being the paths, and such.