Basic Trope: An unusually elusive Mook that gives a huge reward if defeated before it flees.
- Straight: The Metal Slime takes a lot of damage to defeat, has a high chance to run away, and gives 2 levels' worth of EXP and a huge sum of gold when the hero finally manages to kill one of them. It also has a small chance of dropping a Disc-One Nuke, making the next few sections of the game a breeze.
- Exaggerated: The Metal Slime is so rare that it only appears once in a blue moon, and gives 100 levels' worth of EXP and millions of coins' worth of gold when slain. It also runs away if it hears a footstep nearby, and can take an insanely huge amount of punishment.
- Downplayed: The Metal Slime is a bit less common than other mooks, and has a small chance to run away, but gives above average experience.
- Justified: The Metal Slimes are a long-lived and hardy species of kleptophilic animals that steal people's coins and valuables by swallowing them whole before running away at maximum speed. By the time one was ever slain, it had consumed several years, if not, decades' worth of gold, money, and treasure, along with a distinctive and exceptionally rare artifact that proves its predator is an experienced hunter.
- Inverted: Com Mons
- Subverted:
- The Metal Slime appears more commonly in later areas.
- The rewards become more and more negligible the further the player levels up.
- Double Subverted: It turns out the area have another, stronger, rarer version of the Metal Slime which gives more reward than their inferior version.
- Parodied: The Metal Slime receives Scratch Damage from everything, including nukes. Defeating it gives you a T-Shirt with A Winner Is You written on it.
- Zig Zagged: The Metal Slime is hard to kill, but has a chance to drop an awesome item, but the item becomes outclassed a little while later. Later in the game the player encounters a stronger version of the Metal Slime that has a chance to drop the Infinity -1 Sword.
- Averted: There are no Random Encounters and enemies give EXP scaled to the players' level.
- Enforced: "We need to give a challenge to the players. How about a monster that's hard to find and harder to kill, but gives a huge reward to the player once they kill it?"
- Lampshaded: "That EXP gained is so worth the effort."
- Exploited:
- The hero's rival decides to go out and kill a few Metal Slimes himself, averting Villain Forgot to Level Grind. By the time he meets the hero again, he easily curb-stomps his opponent.
- The players use a cheat device to make Metal Slimes appear more often.
- The villain decides to disguise regular Slimes as their Metal counterparts, hoping to waste the hero's time.
- Defied: The game's villain is shown deliberately capturing Metal Slimes, preventing the hero from killing them for their reward.
- Discussed: "Have you seen any Metal Slimes lately? They're fast and tough, but if you can take one down, you'll be glad you did. Legend has it, if you kill so much as one Metal Slime, the value of its carcass can set you for life."
- Conversed: "I've never liked those enemies that are rare and hard to kill, and give you a ton of stuff when they die. Either you get frustrated trying to kill them, or you do, and it makes everything too easy."
- Implied: The strongest, richest adventurers in the game's world are the ones good at hunting and killing Metal Slimes.
- Deconstructed: The Metal Slime species goes extinct quickly, due to being rare and so rewarding to kill.
- Reconstructed: Anywhere between a few thousand to a few million years after Metal Slimes go extinct, another species eventually evolves to take up their ecological niche of being fast and durable, but rewarding to kill.
- Played For Laughs: The hero's efforts to kill a Metal Slime play out like a Wile E. Coyote cartoon, with the hero trying increasingly complex tactics that fail every time.
- Played For Drama: A Metal Slime is a main character, and he's bitter and untrusting because so many adventurers try to kill people like him on sight.
- Played For Horror: Like above, the main protagonist is a Metal Slime, but he's The Last of His Kind and spends his days running in fear from Super-Persistent Predator after Super-Persistent Predator, be they be humans, dragons, other monsters, and even other less valuable slimes.
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