Reincarnated as the favorite of an obsessive goddess: gave me a system-Chapter 39: Bows.

The next morning, Kai, still feeling a slight ache throughout his body, walked through the village streets. It no longer bore any resemblance to the ruins he had found upon returning from the Merg jungle. Now, the village truly felt like a home, a refuge for everyone. People could be heard working to finish building the houses, and children were already running and playing, even at this early hour. Everything was perfect, he was actually making it happen. And although this village still had a long road ahead, the present was wonderful.

As he walked, Kai thought of Lyla, who had stayed in the central building to finish organizing several provisions. She was giving Kai some personal space, trusting that he wouldn’t do anything too strenuous. With a silly smile at the thought of her, he began heading toward his first destination: the forge area, where Bram and Grom would surely be.

As he approached, Kai saw sparks flying and heard the familiar voices of the two arguing over the temperature of the charcoal.

"I’m telling you, if you don’t give it more air, the steel will become as brittle as sugar glass!" Bram roared, waving a leather bellows.

"And I’m telling you that if you heat it any more, it’ll lose the flexibility it needs for a crossbow!" Grom replied, his face smeared with soot and a mallet in his hand.

Kai stopped a few meters away, enjoying the familiarity of the scene before clearing his throat.

"I hope I’m not interrupting a matter of state," he said with a smile.

The two dwarves turned in unison. Upon seeing Kai, their faces lit up with genuine smiles, though Bram didn’t let go of the bellows.

"The Boss!" Bram exclaimed with a laugh. "Come in, come in."

Kai approached and leaned against a workbench covered in blueprints and metal parts.

"I was thinking a lot last night," Kai began, his tone becoming a bit more serious. "Recovering my memories of Japan has given me access to ideas that could give us an immense tactical advantage. Especially for Mira and our archers."

Grom set the mallet aside, interested. The dwarves always had a weakness for new mechanisms.

"Speak, lad. You know that if it can be built, we’ll do it better than anyone else on this continent."

Kai took a piece of charcoal and began to draw on the wooden surface of the table. His strokes were quick but precise.

"In my other world, archery evolved differently. Here, we use longbows or simple curved bows, which depend entirely on the archer’s brute strength. But I remember something called a ’compound bow.’" Kai drew a system of circles at the ends of the bow’s limbs. "It’s based on a pulley system."

The dwarves leaned over the drawing, frowning.

"Pulleys... on a bow?" Grom muttered, scratching his beard. "Pulleys are for wells and cranes, Kai. How are you going to shoot an arrow with that?"

"That’s the key," Kai explained, pointing to the pulleys. "When you pull the string, the pulleys rotate. Due to the mechanics of the cams, there comes a point where the effort the archer has to make to hold the bow drawn is drastically reduced, sometimes by up to seventy percent. That allows an archer to aim for much longer without their arm shaking from fatigue. And when you release... the energy stored in the limbs is released all at once with a power that would pierce plate armor at a hundred meters like it was butter."

Bram and Grom remained silent for a long minute. Bram ran his calloused fingers over the drawing of the pulleys.

"The tension transfers... the weight decreases..." Bram murmured. "Grom, if we use that reinforced oak wood that Thorne brought and use fine steel cables instead of gut..."

"And the pulley axles would have to be hardened bronze so they don’t wear out!" Grom completed, his eyes shining with the excitement of discovery. "Kai, this is... it’s brilliant. It’s mechanical madness, but it’s logical. If we can get the limbs rigid enough, the arrow’s exit velocity would be absurd."

"I knew you’d like it," Kai said, satisfied. "I also have ideas for the arrows, with different tip profiles for penetration or causing bleeding. But for now, the bow is the priority. Mira needs something to level the playing field against high-rank mages."

"Leave it to us, Boss," Bram said, giving Kai a pat on the back that nearly knocked the wind out of him. "In a couple of days, we’ll have a prototype. If this works, we’ll have the best archers the world has ever seen."

Kai left the dwarves immersed in a new discussion, this one much more constructive, and continued his way toward the southern perimeter of the village. There, the farmland was starting to show its first green sprouts.

He saw a figure crouching between the furrows. It was Roshia. Her hair was tied up and her hands were covered in dirt as she placed small seeds into the holes Elara had dug earlier a few meters away.

"It seems the earth suits you," Kai said softly as he approached.

Roshia startled slightly, but seeing it was him, her expression relaxed into a warm, serene smile. She wiped her hands on her apron and stood up.

"Kai. I’m glad to see you walking around out here. Elara hasn’t stopped asking if you could come out to play yet."

"Soon, I hope." Kai looked at the furrows. "Thank you for this, Roshia. I know it’s not what you expected to be doing when we met in those cages."

Roshia sighed, looking toward the forest. Her gaze no longer held that trace of distrust or resentment she had shown weeks ago when Kai confessed his secrets.

"At first... it was hard for me to accept," she confessed sincerely. "The fact that you had hidden so much from us... it made me feel like everything we had built was a lie. But these past few days, while you were unconscious, I saw Lyla. I saw Allice. I saw how this entire village stopped to pray for you."

She paused and looked Kai directly in the eyes.

"I realized that it doesn’t matter who you were a long time ago, or what skills you have in that invisible panel of yours that no one in the village understands. What matters is the man who risked his life against one of Malk’s subordinates so my daughter wouldn’t have to see a fire ever again."

Kai felt a lump in his throat. Hearing those words from Roshia, who had been the most affected by doubts, was the best thing he could hear.

"I won’t fail you, Roshia. Neither of you."

"I know," she replied. "Elara is obsessed with you, you know that, right? She says that when she grows up, she wants to be an adventurer like you. Though I’d prefer she be a botanist or something... quieter."

Both laughed softly. The conversation flowed naturally for a while, talking about the education of the village children and the need to build a small school before winter arrived. Suddenly, Sylva’s voice echoed from the nearby stables.

"Roshia! I need a hand here! They’re very nervous and won’t let themselves be fed!"

Roshia looked at Kai and shrugged.

"Duty calls. Sylva has a lot of patience, but those horses are especially stubborn."

"Go ahead," Kai said. "I’ll stay here for a while and enjoy the sun."

Roshia nodded and walked toward the stables, leaving Kai alone at the edge of the fields. The midday silence fell over him, interrupted only by the distant neigh of a horse and the whisper of the wind through the trees. Kai found a tall, flat rock and sat down, letting out a long sigh.

Kai opened the system’s stat menu.

STATS

Strength: 21

Speed: 20

Endurance: 22

Intelligence: 30

Mana: 1000/1000 𝒻𝑟ℯℯ𝑤𝑒𝑏𝑛𝘰𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝒸𝑜𝘮

Perception: 25

Kai observed the numbers. The 18 points burned in the interface, waiting to be assigned. He remembered the feeling of weakness when Qaxy had him trapped, the fragility of his bones when he activated his Return ability. He knew he couldn’t afford to be that weak, but he also needed the intelligence and perception necessary to improve his handling of mana and magic.

So, he began to distribute the points carefully.

STATS

Strength: 25

Speed: 25

Endurance: 25

Intelligence: 33

Mana: 1000/1000

Perception: 27

Kai felt the stat improvements take effect instantly. However, he knew this wouldn’t be enough. Against Qaxy, he had to use Return, which left him on the brink of death. He couldn’t afford to use it again unless it was an extreme situation.

Therefore, he needed to keep getting stronger; he needed to keep leveling up to protect what mattered and to be able to assassinate all the gods of this world. He sat there, looking toward the horizon where the sky met the mountains. He thought about the cruelty of the gods, remembered several tragedies he lived through in his first life, and the number of people he couldn’t save because of those bastards.

But he also thought about the present, about what he had now and knew he couldn’t lose. He thought about the future of all the people who trusted him completely. And finally, he thought of the thousands and thousands of people he didn’t even know yet, the thousands of people who might be living through horrible situations because of a select few.

"I will kill them all," Kai whispered to the wind, his gaze cold and determined. "This time, I won’t be the hunted. I will be the hunter."