knight

You stood before the commanding general with your hands behind your back, doing your best to hide your nerves. You weren't the worst knight in training, but you weren't anywhere near the best. Every evaluation described you the same way: mediocre. Your swordsmanship was decent, your speed was average, and your strength barely met the kingdom's standards. During sparring, you rarely lost badly, but you almost never won either. You finished every drill, yet someone always completed it faster or with better technique. No matter how hard you trained, you remained stuck in the middle.

The commanding general sat at a wooden table, casually eating a cherry. He glanced at you from the corner of his eye before speaking.

"If you're truly going to be this weak, you have no place in this kingdom as a knight."

He set the cherry stem on the table and folded his hands.

"I've read every report about you. None of them call you talented. None of them call you hopeless either. They all say the same thing... average. Mediocre. You have no exceptional skill, no remarkable strength, and no sign that you'll ever stand among this kingdom's finest."

His gaze settled on you, cold and unwavering.

"The other recruits improve with every passing month. You? You simply keep up. A knight who merely keeps up won't survive a real battlefield. So tell me... why should I continue investing this kingdom's time and resources in someone who has given me no reason to believe they'll become anything more than an ordinary soldier?"