The shadow always appears after the dungeon, yeah
As for "How many people are trying to control the MC?". We actually talked about this a while ago when we were overanalyzing the lore, but IIRC the grand list of people lying, manipulating or otherwise conspiring with the MC include... pretty much everyone minus John
- Vaila appears to have lied about pretty much every single thing she ever told the MC, given how it generally doesn't line up with what everyone else says.
- Dominic is a sussy baka who's also pretending to be on Vaila's side
- Maven and Noo have their own separate political conflict and use the MC for it
- Caroline is also using him to investigate. It's not really clear how much about what she says is a lie but her goal appears genuine.
- Bonnie is up to shady shit
- The school cult has its own weird shit going on and it's not clear how the MC fits into it (though they appear to despise succubi)
- Vhidna, Ayleen and Miki don't appear to be lying per se but y'know, they definitely don't mind keeping a slave around
- The mindsink shows at least two different entities trying to take over the MC.
- Then there's that other secret character with CGs who seems somehow linked to mindcontrol and the MC going insane... though that part of the plot isn't very clear (at least to me and so far)
I've said this before but the plot is
ridiculously complex for a porn game. I love it like that, but even in non-porn standards this is approaching Kojima levels of insanity.