The gingerbread forest looked very rosy. Instead of leaves, pink cotton candy grew on the trees, the crowns themselves were more like chocolate, the grass and bushes were marmalade, and the crunchy ground underfoot resembled cookies.

A joyful Adele went to a lonely marmalade plantain, plucked it and ate it.

"How delicious!" she exclaimed. "You guys need to try it too!"

The boys and I glanced at each other, after which I shrugged and took the advice. Good things shouldn't go to waste, especially when they look so tasty!

I plucked the nearest bunch of marmalade grass and stuffed it into my mouth, the taste was very different from the taste of ordinary marmalades from my world. It was delicious, but too sweet in my opinion.

Uncle Jack and Kyle did not lag behind and also began to eat the gifts of the forest. One broke off the bark of a tree and began to bite off large pieces of chocolate, which caused his entire mouth to become covered with a brown layer.

Another decided to try the cookie ground, but personally I would not do it because you never know who walked on it. In general, this can be said about all the local sweets.

Maybe there are bugs crawling on them, and we just didn't notice? And anyway, where are all the animals and insects? There must be a lot of them here.

[Your active ability Insightful has evolved! You get +1 to intelligence!]

Well, I don't like this one. The last time I got Insightful levels, I guessed that kangaroos are magicians with pocket dimensions and that the dead can be resurrected.

If there are any animals here, then nothing good will come of it. And if not, then it means that everything is even worse and this forest may somehow affect the population within itself.

"Hey guys, I don't like this place at all," I said. "There are a lot of sweets here, but apart from us there is not a single living soul, not even insects. It's too weird, don't you think?"

"You're right," Adele replied. "In the legends, this place is mentioned as very kind to people, but it's better to be careful. We don't eat sweets anymore and we only walk along the road!"

We all nodded and threw the sweets away.

Ha, legends. Perhaps this legend was told by those who managed to get out of the forest alive, but who never saw dead people here. Typical survival bias.

Walking along a seemingly peaceful road, I was as tense as possible and did not even think to look at the stats. Never know what kind of crap will attack me while I'm distracted.

"The road! It's being erased!" The girl shouted.

I looked ahead and indeed, part of the road was scuffed with cookie crumbs, but not much at all and the overall silhouette of the road was still visible.

"There's not much here," Kyle said irritably.

"You don't understand, the road was made by Baba Yaga herself, it can't be damaged," the girl replied in panic.

"Then there are only two possible scenarios," I replied. "Either the road was fake from the very beginning, or there is a monster in this part of the forest that is stronger or equal in power to the Guardian of the Forest. Neither option inspires much optimism."

"You've led us into a trap!" shouted Kyle, coming dangerously close to Adele.

"I... but... the legends said that the roads are safe!" Adele defended herself.

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Another survival bias? Only those who were able to walk along the road and survived could say such a thing. And what about those who met their deaths on the roads?

"Now is not the time to make a scandal," I said, touching Kyle's shoulder.

He looked at me angrily, to which he received a dispassionate look from Uncle Jack. Kyle calmed down a little. Thanks again, Uncle, but I have to deal with this kind of problem on my own.

"Let's leave here the same way we came," I commanded, turning back. "It's not safe to go any further."

[You have gained +1 to intelligence!]

So my conclusions were correct?

None of us had weapons – everything was confiscated. Because of this, the tension about the danger only increased.

"What the hell is this?" I gasped.

As soon as we walked some distance back, a 3-meter cake appeared on the path we had recently traveled. It was lying on the road.

It was bright and tasty in appearance, in 3 'tiers', the lowest one was the largest, and the top one was the smallest.

After seeing this miracle, only one iconic phrase came to my mind: 'the cake is a lie'!

"Move back slowly," I commanded softly.

No one had the desire to argue with me right now, so our slow retreat began.

Cake was still pretty far away from us, so if he was sentient, which I wouldn't be surprised, he hadn't noticed us yet.

If this sh*t was someone's trap, then we're the ones who didn't notice the conspirator.

Suddenly, this cake moved and came to life! 6 limbs, similar to spider legs, came out from under its bottom, on which it ran very quickly in our direction.

"Run!" I shouted.

We tried to get as far away from him as possible, so that he would lose our trail.

Unfortunately, my colleagues decided to split up, even though I did not give the command to 'scatter'. Idiots.

I was the only one who ran straight down the road. This cake on legs was running after me. I wish I could complain about my unlucky life, but it's time to get used to this.

The enemy was catching up with me and clearly had more endurance than I did, because I was already getting tired of the chase. I need to come up with something urgently.

And I did! I turned off the road and ran deeper into the forest. The cake ran after me.

But since he was huge, it was not so easy for him to maneuver among the trees, so he began to lose speed.

After running far enough away from him, I climbed a tree with a lot of cotton candy, in which I hid.

Very soon, an enemy came into my field of vision. The cream on the edges of the cake looked smeared, it seemed that he was damaged.

It looks like he was in a hurry to get here, since the trees had so mangled him.

The enemy seemed to be peering into various details of the area, trying to detect me and sniffing with his non-existent nose.

Fortunately for me, he could not find anything and went on, but calmly and not running.

After waiting for a while, I exhaled softly. I can finally go out.

With these thoughts, I got rid of the cotton candy and climbed down from the chocolate tree, returning to the road following the tracks left by me and the spider cake.

But no matter how much I walked in that direction, I still couldn't get out of the thick of the forest, and the tracks began to disappear.

F*ck, don't tell me I'm stuck here. I was on the trail!

I tried to calm down and figure out what to do. Also, I started paying attention to the details.

Right now, I seem to be in the part of the forest where the cake was trying to chase me at full speed. And although there are no tracks here for some reason, there are cream stains on the trees.

Following them towards the road, I was able to understand something. The forest was self-repairing! At some point, even the dents and damage on the trees, like the cream of the cake, began to disappear, but by that time I was already out on the road.

I decided to continue my way back, hoping that my allies would be there at the exit.

...

And it turned out that they were there, waiting for me.

"You're back! We were so worried!" Adele shouted, heading in my direction with hugs.

If they were worried, they would have come looking for me. I didn't say that, but I accepted the hug anyway... wait, since when are we so close?

Touching her back, I realized that she was somehow unnaturally smooth. I quickly pushed her away from me with force.

It was kind of sticky, like a licked caramel. I was all sticky now too.

Neither fake Adele nor the fake team said anything, but instead rushed in my direction with obviously not very good intentions.

F*cking candy folks, I'm so sick of you. With these thoughts, I rushed deeper into the forest again.

"Get down!" I heard Uncle Jack's familiar voice coming from the f*ck knows where.

I decided to follow this advice and threw myself down to the ground.

Literally a second later, I heard the whistle of a projectile flying past me. And then the second and third.

Glancing back, I saw that all three copies of my friends had shattered into pieces, but were still twitching as if alive.

The projectiles that flew over me turned out to be a heavy branch of a chocolate tree and two ice bolts.

When I looked in the direction from where it all came from, I found my team there in full swing.

Approaching them, we greeted each other with nods, without unnecessary tenderness, and then headed out of the woods.