Oh boy. Ok, I'll take a crack at it (and try not to spoil anything for episodes 3+).
First things first, remember that Akiba the adventurer city is important, sure, but small in the grand scheme of things. There's only like 10,000~50,000 adventurers spread across 4 adventurer cities in all of
Japan Yamato, versus millions - maybe even tens or hundreds of millions - of People of the Land, who inhabit dozens or hundreds of their own cities plus countless villages spread all across the region.
The People of the Land are largely divided into two countries - Eastal and Holy Westelande, which it seems were once one big united empire but Eastal broke away a long time ago, and it's sort of a Holy Roman Empire/Sengoku Japan situation where there's *technically* still an Imperial Family descended from the old Emperors, but they're really just figureheads. The West is run by its Senate who just pretend to recognize the Imperial family, while Eastal is a federation of quasi-independent dukedoms/barons that scarcely even recognize the legitimacy of the Imperial family.
Anyways, so Akiba the adventurer city is inside Eastal, and they are pretty dependent on trade with Eastal to get virtually all of their food and raw materials supply - you don't see adventurers heading out into the countryside to start farming. Back in the previous seasons Akiba's Round Table went through a bunch of political negotiations and shenaniganery to make sure they would stay on good terms with Eastal and maintain free trade relationships, but also still maintain their independence (whereas Eastal basically wanted to appoint them as another barony within Eastal). The thinking was that Akiba doesn't want to get involved in People of the Land politics, particularly because war seems to be brewing between Westelande and Eastal.
But since Akiba made sure to keep itself politically independent from Eastal, well that makes an opportunity for Westelande to ally/vassalize Akiba instead. Even if it's effectively just in name and the Senate wouldn't hold any real power over Akiba (which maybe or maybe wouldn't be the case, I dunno), doing so would still be a harsh move against Eastal's position - establishing an ally/vassal in Eastal's own backyard.
Hence why Westelande wants to appoint Eins the Duke of Akiba and have them formally be recognized as a dukedom within the empire. And why that would piss of Eastal. And why it would ruin Akiba's independence and neutrality.
But a lot of adventurers are unhappy with the unrestrained capitalism/wealth-gap of the current Akiba system and feel disenfranchised by the current Akiba government (the Round Table), so they support the idea of Dukedom, and a lot of People of the Land feel uncertain about Akiba's future as it refuses to join either Eastal or Westelande so they like the idea of the prestige and sense of security from becoming a Dukedom, too.
LinearPhilosopher, on 13 February 2021 - 08:26 PM, said:
Ok so the duke is one of the guild leaders... but why was it that honesty not finding the portal solution that big of a deal... that scene with everyone looking down... and him asking for money... im still lost.
Yes, Eins is the guild leader of Honesty, which was one of the Round Table guilds until he recently seceded Honesty from the Round Table and took the offer to be appointed a Duke by the Westelanders.
The problem with Honesty is that they failed to achieve anything, unlike all the other Round Table guilds. The combat guilds patrol the town and lead the war against the goblin armies, the crafting guilds have invented tons of stuff and funded tons of merchant projects, even the small ones have made names for themselves somehow - Marielle's Crescent Moon Alliance is the cultural heart of Akiba, the orange guy's small guild runs a postal service, etc. Honesty became the only guild on the Round Table that didn't really have any prestige. One big thing they were tasked with was figuring out the portals, and they failed at that, too.
There's lots of guilds that aren't prestigious, of course, but unlike those Honesty was on the Round Table so it had some political influence. Eins feared that his guild would lose any right to stay on the Round Table and lose the influence they had, so he started accepting just about anyone to join Honesty, figuring that at least if they were an enormous guild that would at least be reason enough to keep their seat on the Round Table. But that meant Honesty was taking in all the mopey and dissatisfied adventurers - someone who was interested in making a shop or crafting something or fighting or such would have joined one of the other guilds that is known for doing those things. Honesty ended up with a ton of unmotivated layabouts (not entirely, but disproportionately). A lot of them are just depressed and want to go home. And the weight of trying to keep all those people happy while the rest of the Round Table guilds are full of spunky adventurers eager to secure an exclusive trade deal or go on another raid or invent ice cream made Eins feel more and more like the current Akiba economic and political system was encouraging this growing divide rather than providing a safety net for its least-fortunate.
He's not entirely wrong, but he's not entirely right, either.
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