I completely agree that he is completely outmatched if he is outnumbered. I was simply objecting to the casual way that people say how easily Mathilde could crush him one on one. Maybe I'm misinterpreting people's meaning, but I don't think he'll just be a "find him and he's done for" kind of conflict.
Maybe others would be interested in an arc where you spend an entire mini turn tracking down a guy and then when you find him you squash him like a bug with no threat attached, but I wouldn't find it satisfying.
Just to be clear, I think this
is sort of a "find him (long enough) and he's done conflict". But not in the sense of Mathilde 1v1ing him like an isekai protagonist.
First, when Mathilde gets there, he either already is fighting a bunch of people, or he just got done fighting a bunch of people. In the first case, it's not 1v1, and also Mathilde can hit him with Miasma before wading in. If he then manages to kill the others, it's back to 1v1, but that doesn't mean a straight duel.
No, it would be Mathilde playing to her mobility (horse+teleport) advantage to attack at range (gun, shadow knifes, miasma) and harrass him, stalling for time. She doesn't need to hurt him. She just needs to make a lot of noise, so that everyone else can come and gang up.
Incidentally, that would be the soldiers plan to. Stall him. As more and more arrive, it becomes harder and harder for him to move away, but also harder to attack.
The biggest danger is that he could outrun a mundane pursuit, but I doubt he can outrun Mathilde on speed, and her windsight makes hiding much harder (though not impossible). So in that sense, the hardest part is finding him.
(To be clear, it won't be bloodless once he's found, especially if he can take keep up with the trickling in of forces. People will probably die. But he'll be at his relatively least dangerous.)
