The two of them exited the alley and wasted no time before grabbing the nearest local looking person – Sidon could tell from the way they were dressed and Link simply Did Not Question It at this point – and asking for directions to the shops they wanted. The Minish didn't know where to buy weapons, but they directed them to a food district, which was helpful enough.
They passed by quite a few woven grass houses and even more rock buildings before the scent in the air changed drastically to guide them the rest of the way to the place they had been told to go: between the tunnels created by the local rock houses was an alley filled to the brim with food stalls. It reminded them of the open air market of the previous city, but it was all food and packed into a cramped alley with tall gray walls.
There were so many people in it that they were forced to go with the flow on the right side and ignore the left, where people were headed to the direction they came from. The noise level of everyone talking all at once was loud enough to force Link to cover his long, sensitive Hylian ears to muffle the worst of it, which rendered him even muter than usual. It was crazy.
Every stall sold something different, but what that "something" was was often a complete mystery because of their inability to read Minish and the alley's noise level making asking more of a hassle than it was worth. One stall had small jars of what was probably spices, and another had bundles of dried herbs. One had some kind of vegetable and potentially meat skewers that Link ended up buying one of to munch on as he walked, even at the cost of his eardrums on one ear; the skewer ended up being spicy enough that he couldn't tell if some of the bits were bug meat or not even as he ate it, but it was good regardless. One stall sold what looked like potato fries but couldn't possibly be that, yet another had what was almost definitely air-dried meat chunks, and so on.
Link bought promising looking bits and pieces from a bunch of stalls by just pointing at things, holding up his fingers to tell how many he wanted, and then giving the Minish behind the stall a random amount of rupees and getting back the change, hopefully the right amount. Sidon did the same with anything that looked like frog, shrimp, frog spawn, or otherwise Zora Food-y, borrowing Link's money pouch as needed.
They had a lot of mystery food in fragile looking disposable leaf bags by the time the flow of people pushed them out of the alley and back into the main street. Link's right ear was ringing something fierce and he really hoped that the place one went to buy weapons or general supplies in this city wasn't yet another alley.
"Link, let's go over there to pack these properly", Sidon said, pointing to a direction that presumably had something useful he could spot from over the other people's heads. Link just nodded and followed, and soon saw another alley, this time equipped with tables and benches. A lot of Minish were eating there or resting after an intense shopping spree. Thankfully it was mostly quiet, as people concentrated on eating. ...Well, it was quiet compared to the previous alley anyway, and Link was happy to take even the smallest mercy.
Link placed the food bags and his backpack on a free table, and the two of them fit as much of the food as they could into the backpack. Unfortunately it wasn't all of it, as apparently Sidon had managed to forget that he no longer had his messenger bag in his possession and had bought more food than one bag could possibly contain.
"I believe purchasing a bag for me should be our first priority now", he said sheepishly as he packed the rest of his food back into one of the disposable bags. Link agreed.
A few inquiries for directions later found them walking all the way through the Southern District, as it was called, to the Western District – as in another side of the triangular pedestal of the Master Sword. It was in the opposite direction of the shrine they were supposed to be heading to soon, but the Minish they asked swore to Ezlo that it had the best general store in the city and got Sidon so excited that Link couldn't tell him no. Not that he was much inclined to anyway, as it gave them an excuse to see this side of the city too.
That, and the Minish claimed that the store could only be entered with a magic password, and there was no way Link wasn't going to check something like that out. Okay, so Sidon wasn't the only one who was excited.
They reached the end of the Southern District and turned around the corner… to be faced with essentially a completely different city that made Link do a double take.
Whereas the previous district had been cramped and gray with splashes of green, this district was full of colour. The walls of the rock houses were all decorated with colourful tiles, and the grass houses were sprinkled with flower petals and living flowers. It was spacier too. But what had Link completely thrown for a loop was the citizens: among the Minish of both the Forest and Mist kind were Koroks. Tiny, Minish sized Koroks.
"Huh, there's a lot less people and buildings here", Sidon said, looking around.
Wait... Less people and buildings? Sure, it was indeed spacier here, but... Oh.
'Can't you see them?' Link asked, fairly certain he knew the answer, but needing to know for sure.
"See what?" Sidon asked.
'The Koroks. And their homes.'
Sidon stared at him, and then looked around again, this time with wide eyes and a searching gaze that turned into disappointment soon after. "I'm afraid I only see the Minish. Are the houses in question filling the blank spaces? Ah, pardon my silliness. That spot, for example."
Link looked to where Sidon was pointing at, and nodded. What seemed to be an empty spot for Sidon occupied one of the woven grass and flower houses for Link. Surrounding it was a garden that had a bunch of saplings in it and two miniature Koroks walking around with watering cans. One of the saplings that got watered squirmed around and Link heard a faint, familiar giggle.
Could it be… that the saplings were baby Koroks? Did Koroks start as seeds and then get out of the ground Minish sized and then just… grow bigger and bigger and eventually become visible to big people who had the ability to see them?
Wait, did the Minish living here see them or not? Hadn't Mageri implied that was rare?
Link looked at the Minish around them. Many were minding their own business and not gawking around so Link couldn't draw any conclusions, some walked past the mingling Koroks without paying them any attention whatsoever – which Link presumed meant them not seeing their plant-y neighbours – but some made eye contact with the Koroks or looked at their houses or even had conversations with them. They were in the minority, but they were there.
Link suddenly felt a lot less alone and a good deal less like an insane person. The latter feeling had already been kindled when Mageri explained why he could see the Koroks when nobody else seemed to be able to, but it was one thing to hear an explanation and another to actually meet people like him.
"Is something happening or…?" Sidon asked, and Link realized he had been people gazing for an awkwardly long moment.
'Just fascinating to see Koroks here', Link said, not feeling like giving a long explanation about something that didn't really affect Sidon. Maybe sometime when they were idle and alone and needed a conversation starter. 'Let's find the shop.'
They strode along the colourful street, and Link noticed that everyone instinctively avoided collisions with the Koroks, regardless of whether they seemed to see them or not. Even Sidon sidestepped a truly tiny Korok that he could have easily stepped on without even knowing about it. Link assumed magic was at play; probably much the same kind that kept the Minish settlings from being trampled by big people.
Finally they reached the spot they had been told to find: a tall tree sapling – one could even call it a young tree – that had festive petal strings wrapped all around it. It had a door on one side of it and a wooden advertisement stand next to the door. From the stand hung a bell.
"I'm so excited!" Sidon said, giving Link a wide grin. The tail on his head wagged slightly. "So we ring the bell and state the password and then a secret door will appear, wasn't that what our guide said?"
Link looked at the bell, then at the very visible door, then at Sidon who was completely oblivious.
'Yes', he answered.
This ought to be interesting.
Sidon walked over to the stand and very carefully and reverently rang the bell. Then he cleared his throat and loudly said the password that to Link's ears sounded like complete gibberish, but that he now assumed to be the Korok language.
For a moment nothing happened. Then he heard light footsteps from behind the door and finally, as he had assumed, a Korok opened the door and peered out. They looked at Sidon, then made eye contact with him, and then looked around them – presumably checking if their party included more members – and finally shook what looked to be a tambourine at Sidon and chanted more gibberish.
Sidon gasped out loud and took a step back.
Yep, he could no doubt see the Korok now.
"You're a Korok! Link, they're a- Wait, no, pardon my rudeness!" Sidon didn't seem to know what to do with himself for a good moment, stuck firmly between his enthusiasm and manners. Link bit his lip to keep his snickers from getting too loud – not that he needed to with Sidon being very loud himself. "I am sorry for my complete lack of manners! My name is Sidon, I'm the Zora Prince. This is Link, he's my boyfriend. I've never seen a Korok before. Are you the shopkeeper?"
The Korok had no qualms about laughing at the situation, or just... laughing in general, like the Koroks were wont to do. "Yahaha! Yes, this is my Super Secret Korok Shop, open only to those who can see it! I've granted you Korok Vision for an hour, so make your shopping quick!"
"Only an hour? Link, we must hurry!" Sidon said and followed the shopkeeper inside.
Link wondered if the shopkeeper couldn't just redo the spell after the hour ended or if they just wanted the customers in and out quickly, but figured it didn't matter much – they were supposed to be in something of a hurry anyway.
As he went inside, he was met with a very wood-oriented shop. Obviously the shop itself was inside of a tree sapling that somehow stayed alive despite of it, so the walls, the floor, and the ceiling were all springy feeling, living wood. All of the furniture was either carved directly into the walls and the floor or just somehow growing out of them – the latter option seemed more likely to Link, and he couldn't even explain why. Most of the products sold were wooden too: wooden kitchenware, small wooden furniture, wooden toys, wooden weapons... everything was nicely carved and pretty, and had a distinctly different design from any of the Minish objects he had seen sold in the other shops they had visited during their journey.
Link made a note that this, too, was a place he should bring Zelda to once she had a Sheikah Slate of her own. She would love to see a Korok, even if this particular Korok wasn't as social as Hestu and seemed more inclined to ignore them while they shopped and only got interested again when it was the time to make the purchase. Link thus officially concluded the answer to his earlier musings was "get the customers in and our quickly" rather than "can't redo the spell". Oh well, Sidon was politely wonderstruck regardless, and disinterest was still better than fleeing like some of the bigger Koroks liked to do if Link so much as looked in their direction.
Link picked up a familiar looking Forest Dweller's Bow and a sword of the same series, immediately feeling much better about their chances against the Vaatians they would no doubt be facing soon – he had felt somewhat vulnerable without a ranged weapon, and he had learned the hard lesson about only having one weapon at his disposal, so the short sword was a nice addition. Sidon found himself a new notebook, bound between wooden covers obviously, a pencil, a waterskin that looked to be made from a nutshell, and a bag that seemed to be sturdy looking Korok leaves sewn together and that fit his food and new equipment nicely.
The Minish who had directed them to this shop had definitely been correct about this being the best general store around – they had gotten everything they needed from one place and didn't need to make more stops. They were finally properly stocked up and ready to leave the city as soon as possible.