I Transmigrated Into a Weak Body

The heavy, iron-shod boot swung through the cold rain and slammed directly into Brandon’s jaw. 

There was a sharp, sickening crack. Pain exploded behind his eyes, bright and blinding, like a flashbulb going off in a dark room. 

Brandon’s face hit the ground hard. Foul, freezing mud splashed into his mouth. He tasted rust, copper blood, and the bitter flavor of rotting garbage. He tried to take a breath, but his ribs screamed in protest. 

For a few long, confusing seconds, his brain could not understand what was happening. Just moments ago, he had been in a pristine, white laboratory on Earth, running tests on high-heat thermodynamics. Now, he was lying in a filthy, rain-slicked alleyway, wearing clothes made of cheap, rough wool.

"Please! Don't! Leave him alone!" 

A high, terrified voice pierced through the ringing in his ears. 

Brandon blinked, his vision swimming. Through the heavy curtain of freezing rain, he saw two large men in dark grey armor. They were dragging a small, struggling figure through the mud. It was a little girl, no older than ten. Her clothes were nothing but rags, her face thin and pale from starvation. One of the armored men had a cruel, tight grip on her dirty blonde hair. 

"Quiet, little rat," the man holding her growled, giving her hair a sharp pull. The girl cried out, her hands desperately pulling at his thick, armored fingers. 

“Who is that?” Brandon thought, his mind sluggish. 

Then, like a dam breaking, a flood of memories that did not belong to him rushed into his brain. 

It felt like someone had driven a nail into his forehead. He gasped as two different lives collided in his mind. He was Brandon, a thirty-two-year-old materials engineer and physicist. But he was also Brandon, a nineteen-year-old scribe in the subjugated city of Camelot. 

This body belonged to a frail, quiet boy who spent his days copying tax documents for the Empire. He was weak. His fingers were permanently stained with black ink. And the little girl screaming in the mud? That was Veronica. His little sister. His only living family. 

The memories painted a grim picture. The city of Camelot was dying. The ruling Empire demanded a yearly tax called the "Blood Tithe." If you could not pay in gold, you paid in lives. The Empire needed bodies to feed their magical war machines. The scribe had failed to pay the tax. The guards had come to take Veronica. The scribe had tried to fight them off with a wooden broom. 

The guards had simply laughed, beaten him to a bloody pulp, and left him to die in the mud. In fact, the original Brandon SimmonshadSimmons died. His heart had stopped just seconds before the Earth engineer woke up in his body. 

"Is the scribe dead yet, Brunt?" the second guard asked. He was a tall man with a scarred cheek, casually kicking Brandon in the ribs. Brandon went limp, keeping his eyes half-closed, playing dead while his brilliant mind raced to process the situation.

"Who cares?" Brunt laughed. He was the one holding Veronica. He reached to his belt and unhooked a short metal rod. He pressed a button on the side of it, and the tip of the rod flared with a harsh, glowing red heat. It was a branding iron, powered by a strange, humming energy. "Hold her still, Garek. The Empire needs to know this one belongs to the mines. The brand goes on the neck."

Veronica screamed, kicking her bare feet against Brunt’s armored shins. "Brandon! Wake up! Brandon, please!"

Brandon felt a sudden, fierce burn in his chest. It was not his own emotion, but the lingering love and protective instinct of the original body. But layered over that raw emotion was the cold, calculating logic of an Earth scientist. Panic would not save them. Tears would not stop a glowing iron. Only action could fix this. Only variables, properly manipulated, could change the outcome. 

He slowly opened his eyes wider, keeping his head down in the mud. He needed a weapon. His eyes scanned the alley. Trash, broken wood, a rusty bucket. Nothing useful against two armored men. 

Then, his gaze locked onto Garek’s wide leather belt. 

Hanging from a steel ring on the belt was a small, smooth stone. It was glowing with an intense, pulsing blue light. Even through the heavy rain, the light was sharp and clear. 

The memories of the scribe told Brandon what it was: a Ward-Stone. The natives of this world believed magic was a gift from the gods. They believed the blue stones held the "Breath of the Sun-King," a holy shield that protected the guards from harm. Only specially trained priests were allowed to create them. It was religion. It was magic. It was sacred.

But Brandon was not a believer. He was an engineer. 

As he stared at the glowing blue stone, his highly trained eyes saw past the magic. He saw glowing lines carved deeply into the rock. The lines connected in sharp, precise angles. They formed a pattern. 

“Wait a minute,” Brandon thought, his heart beating faster. “Those aren't just decorative carvings. That is a circuit.”

In his old world, energy flowed through copper wires on green circuit boards. Here, the energy—this strange blue light—was flowing through the carved lines on the stone. Brandon followed the glowing paths with his eyes. The energy moved from the center, traveled out to the edges, and looped back to the center. Over and over. It was moving at an incredible speed, trapped inside the stone. 

‘It’s a closed-loop energy circuit,” Brandon realized. His mind rapidly applied the laws of thermodynamics. ‘The energy is highly concentrated. It is stable because the carved lines keep it flowing in a perfect, unbroken circle. It is acting like a battery. No, not a battery. A pressure cooker.”

If magic in this world operated like energy in his world, then it had to follow the laws of physics. Energy cannot be created or destroyed, only changed. What happens when you take highly compressed, flowing energy and suddenly break the container holding it? 

It seeks the fastest way out. It seeks oxygen. It combusts. 

"Hold her head back," Brunt ordered, bringing the glowing red branding iron closer to Veronica’s pale neck. The rain hissed as it hit the hot metal. "Stop squirming, rat!"