The Hyrule Paradox: Worlds Collide | BOTW Isekai (Book 1)

Chapter 45: Game Over

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"Come in!" Jordan hollered as he stood up and walked towards the door, which opened before he could reach it. It was Olivia, and she had news.

"Everyone is a bit unhappy that they can't see the girls. But they also...seem to realize that something is wrong, so they are trying to respect their privacy. It's a bit tense out there. Mayla is cooking up some hearty truffles for them to eat. How is Maria?"

Jordan glanced over at Maria where she sat at the edge of the bed, his face a permanent worried grimace. "Come see for yourself, we need you to heal her."

Olivia walked across the room to Maria, and knelt next to the bed so that she could get a clear look of the gashes on her legs. She flinched badly when she saw the damage, but straightened her face and spoke calmly, though her voice was undeniably shaky. "May I heal you?"

"Please." came the desperate response.

Olivia moved her hand close to the wounds on her left leg, pointed her index finger, and the green beam shot out of her finger. Immediately, Jordan could tell something was off. For one, Maria seemed to be in no pain at all while the beam made contact with her skin. And secondly, when the beam made contact with the wounds, it appeared to dissipate into the air in a green mist. After a couple of seconds, Olivia stopped using the magic, and they checked Maria's thigh. Nothing had changed. The wounds were still as nightmarishly fresh as they had been a minute ago.

"What?! It's not healing?!" Olivia gasped, staring at her hand as if the magic was broken.

Jordan and Olivia looked at each other in total confusion. Maria hung her head in defeat. It was like there was some invisible barrier on Maria's skin that prevented her from being healed. Olivia tried healing the wounds on her right leg. Nothing. Something was going on. They sat there confused, and wondering. Olivia tilted her head as she pondered the problem.

"Maria, do you have any contusions that the Yiga didn't give you? Like, a small bruise or something?

Maria wordlessly lifted her left arm and turned it over so they could see a small black and blue mark that was only about an inch in diameter. Olivia reached for it and tried to heal it. The green magic disappeared into the skin and Maria flinched. It worked! But wait...why was Olivia able to heal some random contusion, but not the bloody wounds?

He thought about it. What was the difference between the cuts on her legs, and a black and blue mark? Well, one hadn't broken the skin, the other had. One would fade away within a week, and one would take at least two weeks to heal fully. But neither of those comparisons would explain why one could get healed and the other couldn't. Maybe it was about how she had gotten them? The black and blue mark she had probably gotten by bumping into something too hard. But the wounds had been done with a windcleaver...that had to be it.

"I think I know what it is." he said, his brow furrowed in thought as the two women looked up at him. "They used a type of sword called a windcleaver when they...anyway, windcleavers are known to have some magic imbued in them. My guess is that the magic of the weapon prevents any healing magic from fixing the wounds it creates, forcing them to heal naturally, which is more painful. Besides, some nasty trick like that sounds like something the Yiga Clan would come up with."

"I mean...it sounds somewhat plausible." Olivia pondered thoughtfully. "It also sounds incredibly unfortunate. But whatever the reason, I'm not going to be able to heal these. How about we try to heal your back? Hopefully we should be able to heal that."

Maria raised her shirt a bit so they could have a clear view of her back. Unfortunately, they couldn't seem to heal that either, even though the whippings obviously hadn't been done with a windcleaver. Olivia dropped her head in defeat. She seemed to have been quite spooked when she saw the damage.