I think this is now in story collapse territory since this development is contradicting the whole premise of the manga and removing any sort of payoff that the villainess stories usually have on the revenge aspect. This was an alright manga but now we can safely say it's poorly written.
This took a nosedive around the middle, which is why i'm not surprised at all by the axe. The more characters they introduced the worse it got, and a romcom ending where it's ambiguous whether they ended together is wild, but not in a good way.
This has it's moments but it's basically just more Saki with different characters. If you want more of that then good, but it's hardly worth reading otherwise.
Reading this again this whole skill and announcer nonsense is so stupid. If you're going to asspull to keep your protagonist alive then maybe don't have them that badly backed into a corner instead?
So if i understood those interviews the only reason they are even applying is they want to get in her pants right?
Now the tone of this manga doesn't suggest anything like that will happen (this seems more like a reverse harem shoujo/gag manga), but if i were her i would never ever go dungeon...