The leader of the group stayed behind and gave no orders to the group as if he bore no responsibility for their choices.
His blank eyes didn't even look at the lustrous fruit and kept staring at their actions.
Thime, a veteran sailor very well knew that the fruits were odd. He too had heard stories of magical fruits and did believe in them but at the very moment, he still clung with his rationale.
'Why is a garden like this present in the middle of nowhere?'
He asked himself.
His gut told him that the fruits were unusual. This was only possible through his experience of many years.
'They are…' his mind recalled some of his memories of the past.
He stretched his hands towards the group.
Some were already climbing on the trees, while some were to throw pebbles at the fruit.
"Don't…"
Before he could continue, he felt a strong grip on his right shoulder; his body trembled. He turned around to see the grim man was holding his shoulder.
In spite of having a muscular figure, his voice was shrill of a girl.
"W-We…"
He stuttered; before he could finish the words, the man interrupted him. "Why don't you worry about yourself first, and then about others?"
Name, Freeman and with his quick wits and mysterious background, he was given to lead the group.
Unlike others, nobody knew him. All they could know was that he was a genius and an inventor.
With his striking black eyes, he said those words to Thime, who now was mumbling in his shrill voice.
"W-Why? Doesn't it look suspicious?"
He asked; to which Freeman replied with a slight smirk. "Let the fools fall into the trap, and let the smart win. The world need not want people like them, as they exist in billions."
"....."
Thime gave Freeman a blank stare. He couldn't understand what the gray-haired man had just told him. His mysterious words, to him, sounded poetic and meaningless, yet full of strange energy or emotion he couldn't describe.
Freeman looked at his jumbled face and he explained it to him. "Worry about yourself. You should be glad to be a person of a rationale who thinks before he acts. Now first think about yourself, and then about others. What is the most important thing to do in our current situation?"
Thime looked at his wandering pupils, as he reevaluated him and his actions.
"I should protect myself first, before trying to help others."
Freeman smiled as he patted his back, and let out a few words. "Find the most important thing you would need, and don't forget to be quick. Being selfless is nothing more than a charade."
Thime understood what Freeman was conveying to him. He felt an abrupt sense of guilt boiling down into his blood, but he understood he had to take the bitter pill.
With an overwhelming sense of guilt on his shoulders, he looked around the place to spot any fruits that didn't look suspicious or emitted an unworldly radiance.
Luckily, for him, many fruits we're lying around just to be picked up; and with his leather pouch, he picked them one by one, until he could no longer fill the pouch.
Even after Thime collecting the fallen fruits, there still were many left lying on the group waiting for being picked up and eaten. But strangely, not many of the group members took much interest in them, and were rather focused on climbing the trees, plucking the fruits hanging high; sometimes it was their curiosity that drove them, while the other time was their greed.
Thime went back to Freeman, who had a stealthy smile on his face. "Am I being paranoid?"
Thime found the group's behavior a little strange, rather nonsensical.
'Why are they not going for the fallen fruits? Even if the fruits look beautiful, what they need now is not luxurious fruits, but rather something to bite.'
'What if the fruits are poisoned!!!'
His eyes widened as the sudden thought came to his mind, which was enough to send a chill down his spine.
He turned towards the gray-haired man, who when noticed his worried face, gave a devious smile as if he already knew what was going on.
'Why isn't there any tree around, that has the fallen fruits? Why are there only golden fruits hanging on the trees, and then so even that high that they are unreachable.'
'Why isn't there a single golden fruit fallen on the ground? And why only there is only this fruit lying all around here? Did an animal borough them here, if so, then why they aren't being eaten, and are left to rot?'
The more he thought about the vagueness of their current situation, the more he realized that they were a part of something big, or they were going straight into a trap.