To add to discussion on the Far East:

I believe Yugiri did mention that not *all* of Othard is fully conquered, as the Empire did not consider a few of them a threat. It's entirely possible the frequent visitors are from those few bastions of freedom left. The only trouble I have there is that some of the previous visitors (a la the Uma Byugo) seem to imply a fairly large and established yet still free society/city back home, and I'd like to think that larger cities would be bigger targets for Garlemald, with only small rural villages flying under the radar.