I think they've been trying to better connect the 24 man raid to the world since the other 2 alliance raid (especially the void ark one) was not that connected to the larger world, that said I had that unpleasent feeling of filler too, considering that once you finish you have a bonus quest too, they should've just added the fecth quest to that other one and call it a day, I guess they alspo wanted to add a "reality" thing to give meaning on ramza and the others reading the book to find the place, but ye it didn't work