Meaning of ハグレ (kanji unknown)


The following sentence is from a book. The context is the main characters just
finished fighting some monsters. One character looks distracted, and when one
of the others asks her if there's something wrong, she says:

> いえね、さっきの化け物が単独。もしくは、ハグレなら問題はないのだけれど。

Since there is no kanji with ハグレ, I'm having problems trying to figure out
what they're talking about. Does anyone have an idea based on context? I
guessed maybe the word 逸れる, but I'm not sure it makes sense here. Thanks.




Yes that ハグレ is from the verb はぐれる and means "lone wanderer", "stray one",
etc.

はぐれ as a noun is definitely rare and is almost never used in daily
conversations. But J-RPG fans are somewhat familiar with this word because
[はぐれメタル](http://dic.nicovideo.jp/a/%E3%81%AF%E3%81%90%E3%82%8C%E3%83%A1%E3%82%BF%E3%83%AB)
([Liquid Metal Slime](http://dragonquest.wikia.com/wiki/Liquid_metal_slime) in
English) is one of the most popular monsters in the _Dragon Quest_ franchise.
Actually I feel her use of ハグレ is a reference to this monster.

Aside from this, the only word I know which contains はぐれ is the title of [this
TV
drama](https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%81%AF%E3%81%90%E3%82%8C%E5%88%91%E4%BA%8B%E7%B4%94%E6%83%85%E6%B4%BE).

