First, a little explanation of the situation in Mericia was in order.
Mericia lay northwest of the Empire, separated from its mainland by an ocean, as mentioned before. Even within the Empire's original borders, Mericia had been a frontier region, for farther north lay lands of bitter, extreme cold.
For that reason, Mericia District had originally served mainly to guard the Empire's borders, and then as a place of exile for prisoners-rather like those television dramas where someone was "exiled to Ningguta to serve armored soldiers as a slave."
Thus, many criminals sentenced to exile had arrived on this barren land to work as slaves.
After all, the conditions here were terrible. Any ordinary citizen of the Empire who had so much as a bite to eat would never want to come to this hellhole, so they might as well send prisoners to open up the land.
But later, more and more people began arriving. Most were people who, for one reason or another, could no longer get by on the Empire's mainland. Some had offended a powerful faction and wanted to escape; others had committed crimes and fled straight here to avoid arrest. After all, exile to Mericia was itself a punishment, so inspections of travelers bound for Mericia were lax, giving plenty of criminals a chance to escape the law.
There were also nobles who had ended up on the losing side for various reasons during the Empire's countless political upheavals and had been forced to flee.
With a population like that, Mericia had virtually no sense of belonging to the Empire's mainland. Transportation was inconvenient, too-as Erin had said, a sea voyage to Mericia used to take half a month or even longer. The Empire therefore largely left Mericia to its own devices, tacitly allowing it to