Transmigrated as a Peasant: I Conquered Magic With Science

Chapter 3

The Commander did not hesitate. The moment the order left his lips, he lunged. 

He moved with a terrifying, unnatural speed, empowered by the magic woven into his armor. The glowing blue runes on his heavy broadsword flared brightly. The blade cut through the cold air, leaving a trail of shimmering heat behind it. He aimed straight for Arthur’s neck, intending to take the boy's head in a single, brutal swing.

Arthur’s eyes went wide. The scientist in him calculated the speed, the angle, and the devastating kinetic force of the heavy steel. “Too fast. Too heavy to block.”

He didn't try to stop the sword. He moved his body instead. 

Arthur threw his weight backward, dropping his center of gravity. The glowing blade passed mere inches from his face. The intense, magical heat radiating from the steel instantly singed the tips of his dark hair. The smell of burnt hair filled his nose. 

The Commander’s attack was powerful, but it had a massive flaw: momentum. 

Because the Commander swung with all his might, expecting to cut through Arthur easily, the sudden miss threw the large man off balance. The heavy steel armor he wore only added to his forward momentum.

Arthur saw the opening immediately. It was simple physics. Leverage against an unbalanced mass. 

Before the Commander could recover, Arthur dropped entirely to the mud. He shot his left leg out, hooking his foot sharply behind the Commander’s heavy iron boot. At the same time, Arthur used his blistered right hand to shove hard against the back of the Commander’s armored knee—the weak point where the joints bent.

With a roar of surprise, the Commander lost his footing completely. His massive weight carried him forward, and he crashed face-first into the thick, freezing mud. His runic sword dug deep into the earth, hissing as the heat boiled the wet dirt. 

"Run!" Arthur shouted, his voice cracking. 

He didn't wait to see if the Commander got up. He scrambled to his feet, grabbing his mother's thin arm with one hand and Eliana’s small hand with the other. 

"Arthur, wait!" Clara cried out, stumbling as he pulled her forward. 

"Don't look back! Run into the alleys!" Arthur commanded, his tone leaving no room for argument. 

The three of them dashed away from the town square. Behind them, chaos erupted. The other soldiers yelled in confusion, trying to move through the panicked crowd of villagers who were now scattering in every direction like frightened mice. 

Arthur led his mother and sister into the dense, narrow maze of Oakhaven’s slums. The buildings here were nothing more than rotting wooden shacks packed tightly together, separated by narrow, muddy pathways. A thick, gray fog had begun to roll in from the nearby dead woods, settling between the houses and hiding them from view. 

They ran until Clara’s legs gave out. She collapsed against the side of a rotting wooden wall, gasping for air. A violent, wet cough shook her fragile body. She pressed a dirty rag to her mouth, and when she pulled it away, Arthur saw the dark, blackish blood staining the cloth. 

Mana-blight. The sickness of the poor. 

"I... I can't," Clara wheezed, her chest heaving. "Leave me, Arthur. Take your sister and hide."

"We are not leaving you," Arthur said firmly. He quickly checked the alley behind them. The fog was thick, but he could hear the heavy boots of the soldiers marching in the distance. 

"Spread out!" a voice shouted from the main square. It was the Commander. He sounded furious. "Blockade the main road! Surround the perimeter! They cannot escape into the Abyssal Woods. Let them freeze in the fog tonight. When the sun rises, we purge this village house by house!"

Arthur’s heart hammered against his ribs. He leaned against the wall, trying to catch his breath. 

“They aren't chasing us into the slums,” Arthur realized. “They don't want to get ambushed in the narrow alleys. They are locking us in.”

The soldiers were going to surround the village. They would wait for daylight, when their heavy armor and magical weapons would give them a total advantage, and then they would slaughter everyone. 

"Arthur," Eliana whispered, pulling on his torn shirt. Her face was covered in dirt and tears. "Are we going to die?"

Arthur looked down at the little girl. He saw the pure terror in her eyes. The original Arthur had loved this girl more than life itself, and the Earth Arthur felt that love burning in his chest, merging with his own stubborn will to survive. 

"No," Arthur said, his voice quiet but hard as stone. "We are going to live."

He bent down and helped his mother stand. "Our house is close. We need to get inside the cellar. Move quietly."

They crept through the fog, staying in the shadows of the broken houses. A few minutes later, they reached their home. It was barely a house—just a small, crooked wooden shack with a collapsed roof. But it had a root cellar dug deep into the frozen earth. 

Arthur pushed open the heavy wooden doors on the ground and helped his mother and sister climb down the wooden ladder into the darkness. He quickly pulled the doors shut above them, locking the heavy iron latch. 

The cellar was small, damp, and smelled of rotting potatoes and damp earth. A single, almost burnt-out candle sat on a wooden barrel. Arthur struck a flint and lit it, the weak orange light pushing back the shadows. 

Clara immediately slumped onto a pile of old hay in the corner, coughing violently again. Eliana sat beside her, burying her face in her mother’s chest, crying silently. 

Arthur stood in the center of the small room, his mind working perfectly despite the pain in his body. He needed to assess their situation. 

[Option one: Escape.] 

Arthur shook his head. They couldn't run. The soldiers were blockading the village. Even if they managed to sneak past the guards in the dark, the wilderness outside Oakhaven was known as the Abyssal Woods. It was filled with monstrous, unnatural beasts that hunted at night. With a sick mother and a ten-year-old girl, they wouldn't survive an hour in the woods.