@puiu yeah, this was a weird choice to write this scenario like this, but it's not the first time this manga has done creepy things that's will probably lead nowhere. Like the end of the first chapter with the grandpa apologizing to a sleeping mc that was actually just him apologizing for taking his measurements. There's a lot of natural ways to have written this group impinging into mc, but I feel the manga was specifically written in this clingy way to make us feel suspicious for no reason.
LOL, watch them fuck him over next chapter and make me eat my words...but honestly, it's just reads like people who are keeping themselves entertained back in a time period where traveling by foot was extremely boring.