I believe this was brought up before by Mabiee a while back, but it was instead in the context of Kris not having character development.
My reason was that, at the start of Chapter 1, much of ?????? was Kris being surprised by the Eye Puzzle's completion and Lancer's ambush. In Chapter 2, Kris is fine with being alone to finish Spamton's deal, since they ask Susie and Ralsei to stay behind.
I'm thinking the third paragraph could probably be merged into it as an alternative, or to revise something with all the party members...