The "morality" of these stories is so bizarre.
- "I'm a morally weak and will accept endless abuse." Except at the same time:
- "I''ve been running an absolutely abusive loan shark scheme from the very beginning which allows me to completely destroy your lives when ever I want."
- Oh wait, let me come up with some excuse for forgiving multiple attempted murder.
It's like a "morality play" written by someone with not even the slightest grasp on what morality actually is.
To be fair, I don't think calling it an "abusive loan shark scheme" is really accurate. He told them the terms up front (though it does seem like there may have been some miscommunication involved), and in the beginning it was a net positive for all of them. They would borrow skills, practice and improve them to the point of retention, and then dutifully pay back their debt while keeping the skills they earned.
What ultimately allowed him the ability to destroy them was the fact that, eventually, they just stopped repaying the loans and instead let interest accrue. I'm sure that he could have had an open discussion with them about this to resolve the issue, but maybe he did and they just didn't heed him. We're not shown for sure.
Maybe he figured that he was with them for the long-haul anyway, and so we wouldn't need to call in the debt until way later, at which point he could maybe work out some kind of gentle repayment plan that wouldn't destroy them. That's pure speculation on my part, but we
have seen that he can at least
somewhat pick and choose what he reclaims from them.
Either way, he seems to have done his level best to make sure he was on the up-and-up from his side of things, including putting in the work to generate more skills to provide to them. The failure was on them for not paying him back like they used to, and for (after that one dungeon clear he mentioned) not listening to his input anymore.