For some explanation on this. While the original story is pretty damn fast with how it does things this single chapter is 3 years of time. And roughly 9-10 chapters of the original story. The apples were kinda different originally, quite a few gags were dropped, a whole member of the royal family was removed from this. And the second prince didn't convince the MC to out race his escorts which led them to that forest.....
As for the sword. On the one hand yes that's problematic but giving a sword as a gift isn't unheard of, in the story though since the wall around the prince was too sturdy he eventually went to the second because he realized just standing there looking at the first prince holding a sword looked sketchy as hell.