"What? Wait, wait, wait! Why are there three of them!?"
Isaac was visibly shaken, his voice cracking as he watched the Bull Golems thunder toward him. He blinked, desperate to believe he was seeing things, but no matter how many times he checked, the count remained the same. There were three of them.
Worse yet, one of them was clearly the leader of the pack, towering over the other two. It was a classic party composition—one boss and two lackeys—the kind of thing found in any standard RPG. Looking at them, the smug confidence Isaac had felt only moments ago evaporated completely.
(Three? Is this more fallout from Zenon’s interference? Wait... was it like this in the original game scenario? I almost never took this route, so my memory is—it’s all fuzzy!)
He was already poorly matched against Bull Golems, and now there were three of them, including a blatant boss-tier variant. The realization that he had to handle this alone sent him spiraling into a panic.
He couldn't tell if this was a side effect of Zenon’s changes to the game's timeline or if he simply remembered the scenario incorrectly. His eyes darted around frantically, his mind racing.
He was facing three enemies he was poorly equipped to fight. He might have had better stats on paper, but they had the numbers. On top of that, his build was focused entirely on agility—a classic glass cannon. If he took even a single hit from a muscle-head type like a Bull Golem, it would likely be a fatal wound.
The situation was overwhelmingly disadvantageous, and he couldn't see a way out of it.
If it was going to end up like this, he really should have just finished off the Skeleton Horse earlier. He shouldn't have been so obsessed with grinding Anhel’s affection levels.
(R-Retreat! I'm getting out of here! The first rule of solo play is to never overextend! If a fight looks impossible, you pull back, regroup, and try again later—!)
Drowning in regret, Isaac finally decided that tackling this alone was impossible. He turned to flee, but he was a second too late.
By the time he realized his mistake, the three Bull Golems were right on top of him. He had been so consumed by panic that he’d failed to track the distance between himself and the enemy. His eyes went wide just as his body was launched into the air.
"Gyaaaaaaaaaah!?"
In one sense, he was lucky that his Stealth skill was active. If the Bull Golems had noticed Isaac’s presence, they would have stopped their charge to engage him in combat. It was only because of Stealth that they hadn't sensed him at all. Had he actually stood his ground and fought them, a grueling and likely losing battle would have followed.
However, in another sense, the fact that Stealth was active was his greatest misfortune.
As mentioned, if the Bull Golems had known he was there, they would have stopped. Instead, the Magic Armor Beasts never even realized he existed. They just kept running.
The result was that three car-sized monsters made of muscle and stone collided head-on with Isaac while sprinting at maximum speed. Naturally, he didn't stand a chance against that level of kinetic force. Isaac was sent flying in a perfect arc before slamming violently into the dirt.
"Gah... hck...!"
Isaac groaned, crawling through the mud as agony radiated through every inch of his body. He was supposed to be the one ambushing the monsters; instead, he was the one who had been blindsided and nearly crushed to death. His mind reeled from the sheer absurdity of it all as he spat out a bitter whisper.
"It... it wasn't supposed to go like this... Dammit... I really should have... killed that horse..."
With one final, resentful mumble, Isaac’s strength failed him, and he collapsed into the dirt.
He had insisted on playing solo, and as a result, there wasn't a soul around to see his pathetic defeat. But because of that same choice, there was also no one there to save him.