The real reason Shadowslash have done this though so that the villagers would get used killing living beings by themselves and because they would be hunting in a forest which is the territory of beasts they needed to be both cautious and sneaky.
It is a training for an assassin, even though he isn't planning on training them to be a cold bloodied assassin at least he wanted them to be at least good at it.
Phina has a different mission and that is to guard their current place and also watch over her tribesman.
The villagers were then presented with different kinds of weapons, they will be the ones that will be picking which weapon they wanted to use.
Most of them chose the weapons that looks extremely menacing but after trying them out many realized that the weapons that they have chosen weren't compatible with them.