Pro: they had all the equipment they needed thanks to the Super Secret Korok Shop. Said equipment was high quality too.

Con: getting Sidon to walk forward now that he could temporarily see the Koroks was like getting past a Guardian unnoticed – that is, very difficult to accomplish.

"Hello, would you- oh, never mind then, sorry!" Sidon said for the umpteenth time, trying and failing to have a conversation with a Korok without them immediately running when he addressed them directly. Link had reassured him after the first encounter that Koroks were usually skittish when perceived, so them fleeing was probably nothing personal and had little to do with him looking intimidating, which had been Sidon's immediate worry. However, Link was starting to think that maybe Sidon's eagerness to smile at them while displaying practically every single sharp tooth in his mouth and looming over them might be a factor after all, because in his personal experience at least some Koroks were the friendly type too. One should think that Koroks that were used to being seen would be less shy as well, but Sidon's fruitless attempts at conversation were painting a different picture.

Finally the Korok Vision spell ran out and Sidon assumed a crestfallen look. Link patted his arm in sympathy.

'We'll get the spell again the next time we visit and give it another shot', he promised. He resolved to tell Sidon to change his approach when that time came just to be on the safe side, and perhaps Zelda would be with them to negotiate with the Koroks first too. ...Assuming Zelda didn't scare them off with her own brand of eagerness first.

"Perhaps this was for the best anyway", Sidon said with the air of someone who was graciously accepting a compromise he didn't like. "I seemed to only have a few minutes left, and that would have cut short any conversation I managed to instigate."

Link nodded, and finally they were able to pass through the district without further delay. Link even managed to more or less ignore what seemed to be a Korok street band that was releasing green and light sparks into the air and making every plant around them sway to the music. He was starting to think that Korok magic, which was very obviously a thing, stemmed from music – Hestu had his maracas that enhanced bags to fit more items inside, the shopkeeper had a tambourine that gave people Korok Vision, Koroks in general rattled and chimed a lot when they poofed into existence, and now this band was making plants dance. He was somewhat glad Sidon hadn't seen that and gotten the chance to draw the same conclusion, because otherwise they would have gotten extremely stuck on that spot.

They turned around the corner of the triangle pedestal and arrived to the last district.

Everything was mushrooms. Every single building was a mushroom of some kind. There were toadstool houses like in the Mist Minish cities, but homes and shops could also be found in Hylian shrooms, razorshrooms, stamellas, silents, and a bunch of other mushrooms Link couldn't even name. He noticed that a lot of the mystery fungi had a skin similar to the silent shrooms, which made him assume that they, too, would glow in the dark. This district would likely look stunning during the night.

On that note, it was pretty quiet. Only a few people were up and about, and they seemed tired and sleepy. Were the people here nocturnal? Would the district be lively at night to go with the presumably glowing mushrooms?

"Ah, we have a place like this in the underwater side of Zora's Domain", Sidon said after Link shared his thoughts. "There's a cavern that's filled with luminous hydrophytes and eels that is occasionally used as a party spot by the younger Zora. Unlike this district, it's always aglow and as such doesn't require the nighttime to be utilized."

Now that was a place Link would love to see, but never be able to, because he couldn't breathe underwater or even dive very deep for the fear of his eardrums exploding. Oh well. It made him feel strangely better about missing seeing this district in all its glory, because at least he could return here in the future to witness it if he so chose.

With only a few forlorn looks at the district they didn't get to experience in the full, the duo passed through the quietville and, after asking for directions from a city guard, arrived at the eastern gate.

This was it. The last stretch of their journey would begin here.

Link's feet ached and felt wobbly again from the mere thought of leaving the city. The shoulder that had been nicked by a sword during their last battle felt hot, while his left that had taken a hit from an Ice Rod arm felt cold, despite having been thawed ages ago. Sidon's scales looked slightly dry and Link swore he could count his ribs, although that last part might just be Link's eyes seeing what his mind was expecting to be there.

This was a terrible idea.

Had he filled his quota of going through with terrible ideas on this trip yet?

His new bow and sword felt reassuring on his back and hip, and his bag was bursting with food.

Maybe...

"Link, I must question our decision to venture forth yet", Sidon said, and Link breathed a sigh of relief. "Let's take a seat, wrap your wound, and eat at least. We don't know how soon we'll be ambushed again and I'm worried about our fighting chances at the moment."

Link knew that wasn't actually enough, but it demoted their terrible decision into just an inadvisable one, and he would take it.

ooooo

This was still a terrible idea.

Sidon had cleaned and wrapped Link's shoulder – after an attempt to heal it with magic, which had obviously resulted in failure that neither had been surprised by – and now it no longer felt hot. He had warmed Link's left arm with the Fire Rod again, and now that felt fine too.

Link's legs, however, still trembled, despite the rest. He could hear Zelda nagging at him about illnesses making a return if one strained oneself too much immediately after feeling healthy again, and Link had gone right ahead and battled ants and Vaatians and had walked for miles anyway. Those definitely counted as straining himself too much, which was very likely resulting in Flu Junior, the son of Flu Senior. He had performed the minimum amount of "responsibility" by giving Sidon a heads up, and both had agreed to ignore the possibility and deal with the consequences as they came, hopefully after Slateri had been rescued.

Link fully acknowledged that they were both idiots, but didn't plan on correcting the course anyway.

The walk down a path out of the city was easy enough, but eventually they had to stray from it into the shrubbery towards the shrine that practically none of the Minish had much business visiting. The grass was taller than Sidon and the Deku Tree's roots blocked the path often, forcing them to either climb them or walk along them until they thinned to manageable levels or lifted off the ground enough for them to crawl through the formed tunnel to the other side. They were almost certain there had to be an easier way there that the Slateri family knew about, but well, they weren't Slateris so they had to take the hard way.

Link was pretty sure it should only take them two or three hours to reach the shrine – comparing the estimated distance to that which they had already walked elsewhere and using his Sheikah Slate as a map – but the terrain was rougher than estimated and they had to go around a lot of obstacles, which made their progress much slower than that.

At the two hour mark his legs gave out. He wasn't sure if he just tripped on a strand of tall grass or if his legs truly refused to carry him further, but regardless of the cause he fell face first into the grass and didn't think he could get back up.

"Link!" Sidon hurried to his side and helped him sit up. "Are you alright? What happened? Are you sick again? Will-"

"I'm fine", Link quickly interrupted, not wanting Sidon to alert their enemies with his steadily rising voice. "Tripped. Or legs gave out. Not sure. I think I need to rest a little."

"I'm uncertain if your legs potentially giving out qualifies as 'fine'", Sidon said with a frown, looking at Link's legs, as if they'd outwardly show signs of whatever was wrong. "Let's rest regardless."

Sidon picked him up like a sack of flour and carried him over to a rock they had passed a moment earlier. They sat down with their backs against the rock for a measly amount of cover from their enemies, should they choose to attack them now.

They dug out their water canteens and drank. Link felt about as thirsty as he did in the Gerudo Desert, which was another worrying sign.

"Are we close yet?" Sidon asked, unable to mask his worry. Link grabbed his Sheikah Slate off his hip and opened the map. It was simultaneously useful and useless, as it certainly showed them to be close to the shrine, but the accuracy of that estimate left much to be desired. Whether they were leaning against the edge of the shrine at that very moment or were still an hour's walk away due to their small size was complete guesswork.

"At least we're close by now", Sidon said with his characteristic optimism, which was slightly ruined by the worried look he gave Link again. "And the map shows us which direction we're walking towards, so we can't pick an incorrect route."

He wasn't wrong. Link wiggled his toes and then his legs, and then bent his knees up. They still felt weak, but already a bit sturdier than before. He dug out a little snack from his bag anyway, and Sidon followed his lead.

"This tastes like frog", Sidon said, which was relieving, because at least this food of his was the right kind; one of the other purchases he had tried before they left had tasted more like some kind of a bug to him, which hadn't been a positive find. He had scored some tadpoles at the time too, but he had eaten all of them already, and the rest of the foodstuff had remained a mystery for later. Sidon was eating a lot, which was a sign that he really required a good fish meal the first thing when they were big again.

After their snack break was done, Link stood up. His legs could carry him again, thank Hylia.

Sidon however over him instead of scouting for the next ten or so minutes, but Link couldn't fault him and forced himself to appreciate it instead of getting frustrated by it.

Then finally, after passing through yet another Deku Tree root tunnel, they could see the Shrine looming over them in the distance.

Well, they could see it for all of three seconds before they were ambushed.

Link's senses were too dulled from his less than perfect health to get a warning until the moment a Vaatian tried to drop on top of him from above. He managed to throw himself to the side and roll to safety, only to see that Sidon hadn't been as agile – likely half because he had been too excited about the Shrine to pay attention and half because he was so tall that the dropping distance was halved, giving him less reaction time.

Sidon was too sturdy to fall down from the weight of one surprise Minish, but said Minish slapped a blindfold on him before getting smacked down by Sidon's headtail.

"Link!" Sidon yelled, hands reaching up for the blindfold.

Link scrambled to get up, only to see more Vaatians jumping out of the tall grass all around them. Which meant the noises behind him-

Link leapt to the side like a Hylian shaped frog, managing to avoid a club to his head. He somersaulted forward to avoid more attacks until he could finally stand up and draw his sword.

When he did, he saw that the still blindfolded Sidon was surrounded by spears, swords, and magical rods, alive but incapacitated unless he desired to be skewered.

They were royally screwed.