The transition was completely unnoticeable. I felt no tingle or twitch even as I felt a fresh spring breeze roll across my skin. The first thing I did when my brown-booted feet touched green grass was slap my forehead and cry out to the sky, "Why didn't I take the blue pill?!"

Now that I was officially immersed in a different world from my own, or I was possibly just batshit insane, or even more possibly a combination of the two, my senses were overloaded with too much for me to handle.

I could barely move my hands to wipe sweat from my brow, but when I did, I was surprised to find that I was now wearing brown gauntlets. I may have been crazy, but I knew for a fact that I did not bring gauntlets with me…

Without consciously realizing it, I sat down on the hill I arrived on, taking in the beautiful scenery but focusing more on the minutes before I left…

My focus was shattered when I heard a bizarre screech behind me, followed by feet prattling over dirt and grass. I turned around to find a blue-skinned thing shambling towards me. It was tall and lanky with white hair tied in a bun and had a very painful-looking spiked club aiming right for my head.

With a yelp that sounded too feminine for my tastes, I rolled to the left, just out of the club's path. It sank into the ground and splintered down the middle but remained as one piece. When I tried to attack, I forgot that the sword was still looped through my pants.

Instead of hitting the beast across the head with my sword, I tripped over the wooden blade, toppled into the beast—which I identified as a Bokoblin—and sent us both rolling down the hill.

After muttering a sailor's oath, I sat up and reached for my wooden sword, still faithfully looped to my pants, but stopped at the blinding pain coming from my left side. Said side was bleeding rather profusely, and upon closer inspection, I found that I had fallen on the spike of the Bokoblin's club. I pulled the damned thing out and found the spike to be at least three inches long, with two of those three inches soaked crimson. In hindsight, yanking out a sharp object was a very stupid move, but most people are not very logical when suffering a heavy injury.

Fan-freaking-tastic, I thought. Ten minutes in Hyrule, I'm already dying.

Splotches of black bordered my vision as I heaved myself up and smashed the club into the Bokoblin's skull, spike first. The club finally snapped down the middle with the larger half still in my hand.

Unfortunately, that was also when an angry memory surged into my mind and forced my hand to continue its gruesome ritual.

Thwack! Never bothering to talk to me, always ignoring me, unless you needed a favor! Thwack! Damn it, why can't you just—Thwack!—Get—Thwack!—Out— Thwack!—Of—Thwack!—My—Thwack!—HEAD!—THWACK!

Once the former club snapped in half again and the breath left my lungs, my hand stopped and released the worn wood. Thick purple blood drenched my gauntlets and probably my shirt and face as well.

At first, I felt a pang of guilt at taking my frustrations out on some creature that didn't know any better, but the blood seeping down my pants washed that feeling away. Unlike the fluids seeping into my gauntlets, this blood was red and came from the puncture wound in my side. I pressed my hand to the source and hissed at the nearly overpowering sting of it, but it was for my health. I felt the wooden sword still loyally attached to my hip, so I yanked it out and held it in my right hand.

"From now on, you stay out of my pants," I sternly lectured the sword.

"Hello there!" a distant voice shouted. I jumped and whirled around with my sword ready to attack, but the pain from such action sent me to my knees. My vision blurred as I heard several sets of feet racing towards me.

Seeing as the last time that happened, I got shish kebab'd, I swished my sword through the air to keep from another Bokoblin assault. The sword struck something metal, and a voice rang out that forced my eyes open.

"Easy, son, you've had a rough time," the voice said. The speaker was a well-built man, probably in his late forties, with dirty blond hair and a split mustache that angled around the corners of his mouth.

His calloused hand rested on my shoulder, but I jerked away out of reflex and held my side because the wound nearly opened further from the sudden motion.

My vision blurred again and a different, larger-sounding voice rang in my ears, saying, "Take it easy, lad, you're injured."

I tried to push away the hands that landed gently on my shoulders, but the adrenaline must have worn off, since all I could do was nudge slightly in protest. My knees decided that was the perfect time to cease function, so I crumpled over into a pair of muscular but slightly chubby arms. Everything swirled around me as the darkness closed in…

And was chased away by an irritating glare from above my head, from some lamp that was too bright for its own good. I didn't open my eyes; I wouldn't give the cursed lamp the satisfaction. I merely groaned at the red haze of my eyelids until I felt a damp cloth pat down gently on my forehead.

"Mom?" I asked with my eyes still closed. I felt that I was in a bed, snuggled under a few layers of very soft fabrics, though I could catch the strong scent of pines and…manure?

"There, just relax," a sweet, maternal voice said to me. I was too disorientated to notice how it sounded different and younger than my mom's voice. "You've been asleep for almost a full day."

I shook my head slowly as I said, "I had this… horrible dream. The Golden Goddesses chose me to… go to a different world and… have an adventure…"

"Well, you're safe now, here in good old Ordon Village."

My eyes shot open to reveal that the 'lamp' was actually an open window. "Ordon Village?!" I launched myself upright on the bed to find a girl sitting there next to me, cloth in hand.

She looked about my age, with a white sleeveless tunic and dark orange trousers that ended just below her knees. Her eyes were a nice shade of blue-green, while her medium brown hair hung just above her eyebrows and swooped to the right as it tapered over her neck, just above her shoulders.

The girl smiled politely at me and dabbed the cloth on my forehead again until I gently held her wrist. "My name's Ilia."

"Zach. Where am I?" I asked.

"Ordon Village, in Mayor Bo's house," she said, wiggling her wrist free as she gently pushed me back down.

I felt a soreness coming from my side, and when I looked down, I found bandages wrapped around my waist. I nodded slowly as I remembered what happened the day before.

Landing in Hyrule…

Fighting the Bokoblin…

Being impaled on its club…

Meeting some people…

"Did the Mayor find me?"

Ilia nodded and pressed softly on the bandages. "Father, Rusl, and Jaggle found you and took you here to recover. You were wounded pretty badly."

"I noticed," I replied flatly, which seemed to upset her since her shoulders tensed up and her smile faded. I sighed and eased myself up once more. "Sorry, I'm just grumpy."

Ilia nodded and smiled again as she said, "I understand. The wound was pretty deep." She pulled the covers off, revealing tan pants that seemed a little baggy on me.

"How did I get into these?" I asked, ignoring the shrillness of my voice.

Ilia's cheeks turned scarlet as she muttered something.

"I'm sorry, what was that?"

"Father changed your pants for you," she said more clearly. "Your pants were soaked in blood, both from you and that Bokoblin you killed."

Killed…

I lowered my head as I realized I made my first kill in Hyrule.

"Do you feel well enough to stand?" she asked with a hint of hope and concern. "Father wants to speak to you."

Can't he just come in and talk to me here?

Ignoring my inner complaints, I eased my legs over the side of the bed, my side burning with protest. Setting my feet on the surprisingly warm floor, I lifted myself up and strode carefully to the stairs. I saw the mayor down below, sitting at a table with a bowl of porridge. He was large, probably a combination of fat and muscle, wore a sleeveless white tunic that reached down to his thighs and a thick dark green sash around his waist, and the only hair on his head were eyebrows and a split grey mustache that curved upwards in a pseudo-smile. His enormous arm weighed heavily down on my shoulder as he ushered me to the table.

"Sit down, lad, and get some breakfast while it's hot." Good Goddesses, his voice was loud! With tense shoulders, I nodded and sat down in a spare seat, a steaming bowl of porridge in front of me. I never had porridge before but I always figured it was like oatmeal, which I despise.

It smelled pleasant, however, like pumpkin pie with a dash of cinnamon. I lifted the spoon, blew gently on it, and tasted the porridge. My eyes widened as I realized it was essentially pumpkin pie soup! I love pumpkin pie!

I finished the bowl, taking care not to singe my tongue, in less than two minutes, and then I realized my mistake. Since I hadn't eaten for more than half a day, my stomach wasn't used to having so much food in so little time with no easing into the process. My stomach kindly reprimanded me for my foolishness by flipping over itself and squeezing until I felt my body would split in half... okay, maybe not that bad, but still.

I saw a cup near my bowl and noticed that it was full of milk. Not one to pass down a good drink of calcium, I grabbed the cup and nearly guzzled the thing down when I heard giggling somewhere behind me. I turned and found several heads peeking from behind a window at me. They ducked down before I could get a good look, so I resumed my nourishing, but took care to sip down the milk instead of chugging it.

Once I finished everything, Ilia kindly took away my dishes and left me alone with her blubberous father, the Mayor of Ordon Village. He didn't do much for a full five minutes; he only stared at me to see if I was going to do something heinous or dastardly.

"So," he began, startling me, "as you've probably been told, I am Mayor Bo of Ordon Village. I trust your wound hasn't been bothering you?"

I nodded and gently prodded the bandages. "It's still sore, but I don't think it got infected or anything. Thank you, Mister Mayor."

He nodded and rested his chin on his fist. He eyed me up and down before saying, "What brings you this far from Hyrule Proper? And where did you get a sword like this?" He held up my wooden sword. "I have never seen a blade like this; even the letters etched into the wood are foreign to my old eyes."

Crap, he wants to know what those characters mean. I don't even know!

"The runes," I said, hoping using a cool word like that would show my knowledge and wisdom about the wooden sword, "are from an ancient language where I come from." He lifted an eyebrow. "Roughly translated, they say..." I eyed the characters on the black blade and almost facepalmed at the inscription: Property of Cheap Swords International. I then noticed just how the English letters were presented: Rather than replacing the characters, the letters were smoky and floated just above where the original inscription was.

"Of Black and Gold My Ashes Lie, Let Sun and Moon Dance in My Eye." His eyebrows lifted up at the words on the blade, oblivious to the fact that I just lied to him. "It was a gift from my father," I continued, "to accompany me on my journey. I'm not from Hyrule at all, as you probably guessed." He nodded slowly, eyes watching me intently. "I come from a land very, very far away." A whole dimension, in fact! "The country I was born in is called America."

Mayor Bo nodded but his brow scrunched up in confusion as he asked, "Why did you bring a wooden sword? Surely you had other weapons at your disposal before you departed?"

I gave a one-shoulder shrug and answered, "We have other swords, but they're only for show. Made of steel, yes, but not tempered to withstand actual combat; decorations and nothing more." My father just loved to collect them, but since I lived in the modern world, actual combat-ready swords were a little hard to come by. "That sword is the strongest we had available."

"Yet you have no clue how to use it properly," he said with a chuckle. At first, I wanted to blush and protest that I did too know how to use it yet I didn't have the chance to, but my cover story would be even better if I could play my cards right.

"I don't, but I heard there was a swordsman here in Ordon that could teach me." I held my chin and scratched absentmindedly at the stubble in false remembrance. "Rusl, I think his name was."

Mayor Bo lifted one brow and lowered his hand from his chin. "You came all this way to see Rusl? He is a fine swordsman, to be sure, but you didn't try looking near Hyrule Castle Town or your homeland for a suitable teacher?"

I never liked playing cards anyway.

"I thought of it," I said, "but I've heard rumors that Hyrule Castle Town is full of only cowardly soldiers who can't even stand up to a wild animal." I hoped to the Golden Goddesses that the game got that part right at least.

Mayor Bo stared at me for what felt like hours until he started laughing and slammed his fists on the table. "Isn't that the truth!" he bellowed, his laughter carrying up and shaking nearly every loose object in the house.

"I guess it is."

"Come, lad, come!" he chuckled out, standing up from the table. He handed me the wooden sword and beckoned me out of the house, where I got my first good look at Ordon Village.