"Louis."

The Emperor murmured the name as he gazed at the fallen woman.

As the supreme ruler of the Empire, the Emperor had first taken note of her existence approximately four years ago.
It was through countless "ears," "hands," and "eyes" spread across the land that he had learned of a peculiar shift within the northern Stormblast family—the dragons that safeguarded the Empire’s frontier.

When he traced her movements back, the Emperor had found himself frowning.
Louis's first recorded presence had been in a village near the northern border.

Had she been born and raised there, it would have been unremarkable.
But her first trace only appeared after more than a decade had already passed.

There was no record of her birth, no sign of her existence before she had been found in that village.

Such a thing was impossible within the Empire.