"The red borders mark the territories of the four grand dukes, while the purple ones are marquisates."
Sylvie explained from the side:
"Yellow and blue represent counties and viscounties respectively, while the green dots represent baronies."
Then she pointed to the few remaining white areas on the map. "White indicates regions that do not yet have lords. They can be directly selected by landed nobles."
Ron stroked his chin and scanned the map up and down, only to find that there were pitifully few white areas left.
Of course, that was not to say there were none.
At the very least, in the Western Frontier, two-thirds of the land was still white, waiting for nobles with eyes keen enough to spot a pig to choose this virgin land.
Aside from the area that had developed around the ducal territory, the rest of the Western Frontier remained desolate wasteland, uninhabited and awaiting reclamation.
Though the mineral resources there were abundant, the initial investment required was immense—far beyond what ordinary forces could afford.
Meanwhile, the Human Empire's mature mining districts in other regions still had enough resources to sustain them for quite some time, so the Empire had not been in any particular hurry to develop the Western Frontier.
The great development of the Western Frontier was proceeding steadily under the second prince's leadership, and it had achieved considerable results in recent years.
But compared to the vast entirety of the Western Frontier, everything had only just begun.
Naturally, Ron could not possibly head to the Western Frontier to join the grand development project now.
Leaving aside whether it was necessary, the manpower and resources needed just to build a town would be a problem.
If he started from the Western Frontier, it would mean beginning everything from scratch.
If there were