Cute animalistic mascot characters (not the sexualized loli animal-eared kind) in mangas are so soul healing, there should be more of them with personality and more screentime~
Irene is still annoying, but I hope she'll learn about her attitude towards MC is definitely disloyal and untrustable, then grow to be a better person and redeem herself. I mean, I don't see how most people even IRL would trust someone like Irene anymore as a "friend-could-be" after all that underhanded blackmailing and pressuring that put MC in a difficult dilemma (even after she tried to set up a student battle, stalk MC on his quests, purposely use her authority position to pressure him to use his unconventional methods to solve her question in class, sweet-talk to get MC's research and magic knowledge, despite knowing that MC wouldn't want to do that in the first place). Obviously, most of her actions and attitudes towards MC so far have been selfish, like are you kidding me if you said any sensible people should be ok with all that and just take it all in from someone who's supposedly a friend/ally but actually toxic and only interested in you for their own benefits only?
@Necrokora
Those "kids" he is going to explore the labyrinth with either will belittle him (cuz they are rank A) or they are the future hero party. Seems most likey at least.
I'd like to think that they will be MC's future allies too especially since he's going to face the demon king and he kinda lacks some strong companions so far. Hopefully they won't be the arrogant adventurer trope.