Alas, it was all a trick: Crack of Dawn promptly took advantage of the power they now held over young Roa (now an "all-rounder") to turn him into their unpaid servant, forcing him to do all sort of menial tasks and never bothering to fulfill their promise. And, due to how the Kingdom of Perdu sees apprenticeships, Roa couldn't hope to find someone else to teach him or just get out of the group. So, for seven years, he was forced to bear it, even as all his achievements were stolen (including his taming of a gryphon and two elemental wolves) and the others took everything he did for granted.
And then, Crack of Dawn reached the coveted A-rank. The group promptly let the success get to their heads, and decided that having an "all-rounder" in their roster would shame them, claiming Roa to be a "talentless loser" since he was still an uncertified apprentice (even though they never bothered to certify him). So, they promptly threw him out of their base with little more than the clothes on his back (and without the stuff he bought for himself).
While Roa manages to find work with a friend trader that had been mentoring him, Crack of Dawn manages to coast along by taking advantage of Roa's familiars being unaware that Roa was expelled. Then, the group screws up mightily by causing a catastrophe - just after they accidentally reveal to the familiars about Roa's real situation, which prompts them to leave the party to their fate and reunite with Roa.
This is just the beginning of Roa's woes, as his story of success in spite of the apprenticeship system prompts Perdu's leadership to attempt to have him murdered so they can ignore the evidence that their "flawless" system has many glaring flaws. But, after Roa handled seven years of thankless work, he certainly won't allow anything else to keep him from prospering!
Associated Tropes:
- Believing Their Own Lies: Perdu, the country Roa calls home, has a top brass that believes its own propaganda that the apprenticeship system they tout as flawless, doing a great job of separating the wheat from the chaff, since over 80% of the apprentices wash out, which makes sense on paper. In reality, the system is anything but flawless, and who knows how many of those 80% were simply victims of being screwed over by abusive or exploitive mentors, not being psychic and choosing a mentor for the job they're most suited to, since there's no magical appraisal tools or spells, and any apprentice trying to change mentors is just summarily treated as a "cowardly quitter."
- Blaming the Victim: Whenever there's a conflict between apprentice and mentor, the apprentice is held to blame, even if the mentor has a glaring criminal record and is Obviously Evil.
- Broken-System Dogmatist: Despite the many, many, many, many flaws in Perdu's apprenticeship system, which is filled with teachers Stealing the Credit, apprentices being forced into effective serfdom due to the lack of oversight without actually being taught anything and are considered at fault for any conflicts with their masters, with any apprentices that have enough and quit being treated as radioactive and more, the top brass refuse to admit that the system doesn't work, using Circular Reasoning to justify things as just weeding out poor candidates and taking pride in how less than 20% of apprentices graduate at all. If an expelled apprentice like Roa does well despite the system holding them back, they're either sent on an Uriah Gambit and made an Unperson or outright assassinated just so said top brass can pretend that said flaws do not exist or need to be dealt with.
- Circular Reasoning: The apprenticeship system Roa suffered under for seven years is glaringly flawed and glaringly self-reinforcing in its flaws.
- Apprenticeships don't do interviews. So, there's no way to know if the mentor an apprentice chooses, or is appointed to, suits them until they sign up, but once they sign up, they cannot change or withdraw without being treated as a "quitter" and thus will be treated as radioactive by any other mentor the apprentice might want to try.
- Mentor/Apprentice relationships have no oversight, so the mentor can "train" the apprentice any way he likes, or not at all as is the case with Roa and the so-called hero party. Since the mentor is the one who decides if the apprentice graduates, this can lead to serfdom for the apprentice, thanks to the "quitter" policy above. Furthermore, any and all conflict between mentors and apprentices are always blamed on the apprentice, thus further reinforcing mentors who think themselves above their apprentices and never graduate anybody. If the apprentice is expelled from the apprenticeship, he is seen as the problem, and is also treated as radioactive because no other mentor wants to be associated with a "talentless loser" or "problem child with an attitude problem." The reason for the expulsion is never questioned.
- If an expelled apprentice, like Roa, winds up doing well in spite of the system, and what's worse, his dismissal shows that the mentor was just stealing the apprentice's accomplishments for himself, as in Roa's case, the top brass sends assassins at the apprentice in question, or sends the apprentice on an Uriah Gambit and then pretends the apprentice never existed.
- The system encourages Stealing the Credit because if the apprentice achieves something he hasn't been certified in, like beast taming, the mentor will take the credit to keep things legal.
- Dystopia: Of the false meritocracy variety. The country Roa hails from touts its apprenticeship system as a meritocracy, separating wheat from chaff, but it's a heavily flawed system that is far more often than not resulting in success by sheer luck and all the ones who are screwed over by the system are treated as the problem.
- Ignored Expert: After tossing Roa out, the "Hero" party ignores the written instructions he left behind for his familiars because they believe he was a "talentless loser". This ends up biting them in the butt as not only do the familiars eventually leave to find Roa, but the party loses everything while causing a mithril golem incident.
- Legalized Evil:
- It bears repeating, but Roa's treatment under the party Crack of Dawn isn't the exception, it's the rule in the kingdom of Perdu. Novice apprentice adventurers, aka, "all-rounders" are assigned a party to train them to be competent adventurers, and are looked upon by the adventuring party, the guild, in its entirety, and the nation as parasites until they're certified by the party to be competent enough to fend for themselves and treated poorly. As Roa's case demonstrates, these "all-rounders" are, for all intents and purposes, hazed endlessly during their tenure and the mentoring party has no obligation whatsoever to actually teach them anything. Whenever there's a problem, the all-rounder is blamed and it's pretty much a case of divine intervention that the poor guy gets certified as legit. Yes, it's all coded into law. Visitors from foreign powers are baffled how the nation manages to persist.
- In the aftermath of the golem stampede triggered by Crack of Dawn, the party Nostalgia has to hide their hard-earned loot of Mithril that they got from taking down Mithril golems at terrible personal risk and effort, because if they don't, the adventurer's guild would legally confiscate it all without compensation of any kind. And that's not because they're foreigners, but standard operating procedure.
- Removing the Crucial Teammate: Literally kicking Roa out of their party was the biggest mistake the self-proclaimed "Hero" party could have ever made. Not only were they exploiting the hell out of their country's apprenticeship system to get free labor, of excellent quality to boot, but they were entirely dependent on everything he did for them and on using his familiars as their own. Sure, they manage to coast along for a while because the familiars don't catch on right away, but the instant the familiars do realize what went on, and bolt, their fame and fortune collapses in epic fashion, and they trigger a major disaster involving mithril golems running amok, because they couldn't be bothered to follow written instructions their "talentless loser" left behind.
- Unperson: The top brass are so proud of their apprentice system that they'll have any and all evidence that it has flaws eliminated. That includes apprentices such as Roa, who are hunted down by assassins and their existence erased.
