I love the WN. I've read through it countless times already.
This is not a spoiler, but the "side" shown in this chapter is necessary for character development, just in case anyone is feeling tired of not seeing Makoto and the gang.
It's going to take
years until the manga even comes close to the WN though. Right now the manga adaption is somewhere inbetween chapters 50-100 of the WN iirc. There are 300 chapters out of the WN already, and keep in mind the time it took to get this far in the manga adaption. There are also many chapters of the WN that the manga is forced to break up into chapters of 2 or 3 chapters per WN chapter, because there are a lot of really lengthy chapters in the WN with a lot of story progression in each one.
I definitely recommend reading the WN instead if you're interested in the story, and only rely on the manga for the fancy artwork. 🤣
@Riger They completely redesigned the character looks of Sif and Yuno from the WN in the manga adaption as well. Official illustrations of Sif and Yuno were included in the chapter with the party in the WN, and I'll refrain from saying any more than that since anything too specific would count as spoilers.
(Don't get me wrong, I prefer the manga versions they did. But it's also true that they look very different from the illustration of them in the WN.)