User blog comment:IamJakuhoRaikoben/Chapter 352: The Flame's Voice, Review./@comment-4449950-20130921084301/@comment-7418318-20130921153216

For me it feels like the treasure hunters were put in there to make Flare's joining up with the Fairy Tail team easier to swallow.

Imagine if they happened to run across her, listened to her story and decided to trust her just like that...

Maybe they'll serve some purpose later on (maybe the "red-shirts" that die to show the situation is really dangerous? That's be great *evil-grin*), but for now they already fulfilled some purpose.

And they made the three girls look cool, which was also nice.