Might be my fault since I'm used to Final Fantasy and some other similiar games, but I don't think it's that much hard. What are you calling "half a day grinding levels" it's just 1-2 minutes. Level 3 is enough to beat the trent. You literally need to beat 3 lone wolves and 1 snake. Or 1 gnome, 1 lone wolf and 1 snake. Or just 2 gnomes.
The three wolves are hard until level 5, and in fact you're supposed to escape at first. During the first round they're supposed to hit you so hard you should understand it's not the right moment to face them, and escape.
The autosave after losing is a very strange bug... I'll look into it. Thanks for the report. Not having a single manual save is very strange though.
Anyway, if the game is too hard for you, just cheat lol (or just use cheats to give you a small boost with the farm, if you actually want to play)