It's a matter of both standing and allegiance, basically ars and him are allied and likely to be so for a very long time, in situations like that sometimes transfer of personell was common, while a little rude, ars is still technically working for house canale currently, so it's more like working at a company and the financial division asks for a transfer of personnel from the base level employee position, but the low level employee's really liking their boss so they refuse the promotion, he's essentially a knight under a lord, while it might come off as rude, it's not entirely unheard of, especially if they were mercenaries, true loyal knights weren't as common as most historical legends like to portray, charlotte and ritsu however aren't mercenaries, they consider themselves loyal to ars specifically as such their lives and loyalty belong to ars.
TBH this is a quite decent adaptation. The novel is trash in everything other than narrative direction. I can't see anything good about it other than it knows what it is, fulfills the promise of it's premise and moves forward with the plot.
@cancerverse The roles in this manga are basically non-existent, I had mayor before but decided to change it in order to create a somewhat competent system of roles for the overall story
@NotFunstuff But I don't know how that's supposed to scale. There's at least one more rank before emperor in the novel so is the next rank arch duke/grand duke? How does that scaling make sense that the vassals are mere 'lords' rather than a range of titles from baronet to marquis or margrave?