Oh hey, a satirical, lighthearted, but very accurate representation of how bureaucracy works in asian countries. I never thought I'd see a mangaka self-aware enough to do something like that.
@vick_detri "I didn't understand it in the LN and I don't understand it in the manga. How on earth did he think that the change of the noble owner of a territory could be done by a simple civil servant?"
I don't know what happened in the LN, but in his defense here, he was told "go to this location and they'll deal with it." He was just doing what he was told. If anybody was wrong, it was the person who gave him the instructions, because obviously there was nobody there who was actually qualified to help him. Or more like, there was, but by the time it got kicked far enough up the chain, it was already past quitting time.
Also,
@TheMagicalSloth is more or less correct,
@Doomer @So-chan . This system works because the Emperor/Great King owns all the land, it legally belongs to him. He's permitting the nobility to live on it, refine it, and manage its affairs to remove some of the burden from him having to deal with everything himself. Nobility are fundamentally servants or vassals to the crown. It's not the nobility that have to pay taxes, but the peasantry. Sometimes the peasants are taxed directly, sometimes the nobles are taxed and expected to get the taxes by themselves imposing a tax on their people. If you want to know how this system could be enforced, the answer is "because if you don't do as we say we'll kill you." The crown controls the military, or since this is a fantasy setting, maybe the emperor is a supremely powerful individual or has a grossly overpowered skill. Either way works.
You have to understand, in both the East and the West, nobles are functionally just stewards and servants of the monarch or emperor. What's happening is the MC's party was rewarded with being officially recognized as such because they killed that snake, and now that reward has been transferred solely to the MC as his retirement package from the party.