He earns his freedom when someone he’s trained reaches the 4th floor, but he still has to complete the current dungeon.

Sorta like a car salesmen earning their sales bonus but still having to work for the rest of the month.

Makes sense in-universe too, if you were running the crawls you really wouldn’t want your experienced people disappearing mid crawl, much better to delay any job swaps to the off-season.

It's an easy misunderstanding. If Donut makes it to at least the 4th floor, Mordecai will be given enough credit to be let out of his contract when the dungeon is over, regardless of how Carl and Donut fare from here. He is still Donut's manager as long as she is in the dungeon but now the pressure is off for him in regards to having to stay on for another season. He will be given more compensation the deeper they manage to go, but the 4th floor was the minimum to satisfy his contract this season.

If I remember correctly, the deal with the manager is that he stays with them until the end but, if they reach the fourth floor before dying then he is free and not bound to be resurrected at the next dungeon.

No, I think you misunderstood, although it's been a while since I read this part, so I could be misremembering the details.

That said, while Mordecai will be "granted his freedom" once they make it to the fourth floor, he will not actually be free until after the entire crawl has ended. In other words, it's like he is in prison and they have reduced his sentence from 30 years to 1 year. He's gonna get out way sooner, but he still has to serve out the year, or in this case the rest of the crawl. Hope that makes sense.

Mordecai's original exit deal was for a certain number of cycles, but it would only count this one as complete if Carl and Donut made it to the 4th floor.

If they'd died, he'd still be indentured in the dungeon next season.

The manager perk actually has nothing to do with it, other than having the unfortunate side effect of making him stay involved in this season/cycle for longer before he can pack his bags and GTFO.

But that's what it says, isn't it? They make it to the fourth, Mordecai can go home when the dungeon is over. I think if they didn't pass the third florr he would still have to do some time.

Thanks to everyone who commented! I appreciate the clarification. I must have missed the detail of making it to the fourth floor.

Looking forward to book 3!