Average

The next morning arrived with the sharp blare of sirens and a booming voice rattling the barracks speakers.

"Rise and shine, volunteers. Evaluation begins in thirty minutes. Failure to report will result in disciplinary action."

Kai Azura rolled over on the stiff cot, one eye cracked open. The room was gray and sterile, filled with rows of identical bunks and dozens of groggy volunteers in various states of panic and stretching.

He stretched casually, yawned, and slid out of bed with zero urgency.

Still wearing his headphones, still chewing the same gum he popped in the night before, he strolled to the locker and pulled out the standard issue tracksuit every volunteer was required to wear. He stared at it like it was a personal insult.

"Hideous," he muttered, but slipped it on anyway.

By the time he arrived at the evaluation field, the air was already buzzing with tension. The compound's vast training yard was now swarming with hundreds of volunteers from around the world. The area had been split into multiple zones—physical assessments, combat trials, teamwork simulations, mental acuity tests, and more.

Officers with clipboards barked instructions, marking names and stats with cold precision.

Kai looked around at the eager faces, nervous glances, and shaky knees. He suppressed a sigh.

Time for Operation: Get Kicked Out.

When the whistle blew, Kai deliberately tripped on his first sprint. During hand-to-hand sparring, he "accidentally" walked into a jab. When it came time to lift weights, he dramatically grunted while barely hoisting the lightest bar.

An instructor narrowed his eyes at Kai from across the track.

"You okay there… Ethan Azura?"

Kai blinked innocently and gave a thumbs-up. "Just giving it my best, sir."

The instructor didn't look convinced.

As the morning dragged on, Kai committed to the bit—half-hearted dodges, slow reactions, overacting his failures like a bad soap opera extra. By lunch, he was confident his plan had worked.

Then he overheard it.

Two drill sergeants chatting behind a row of storage crates as he lazily wandered by.

"Have you seen that Azura guy? Useless."

"Yeah. Honestly, we've got a few like that. They'll make good cannon fodder for the first wave."

Kai paused, just out of sight.

"Command's plan is to weed out the weak by sending 'em into the early skirmishes. Make an example, thin the herd."

"The worst part? They think they'll be sent home if they fail hard enough."

A bark of laughter.

"Poor bastards."

Kai stood still, gum frozen mid-chew.

Ah. So that's how it is.

He slipped his hands into his pockets and walked off without a word, but inside, he was annoyed—not because of fear. He was beyond that. It was the inconvenience that bothered him.

Being on the front line meant being dragged into action immediately, surrounded by chaos, incompetent allies, and unpredictable variables. He didn't care about glory or ranks. But an annoying, early death march filled with screaming humans?

No thanks.

When the second half of the day began, Kai's performance quietly improved.

Just enough.

He completed the obstacle course in an unremarkable time. His punches during sparring hit with average force. He answered the logic puzzles with one or two correct guesses and one or two wrong ones.

Enough to pass. Not enough to impress.

He flew under the radar like a pro.

By the time evaluations wrapped up, Kai had perfectly blended into the middle ranks—a ghost among the desperate and the deluded.

As the sun dipped behind the horizon and the names of top performers were read aloud, Kai lounged on a bench, lazily sipping a juice box from the lunch stash he'd "borrowed" earlier.

Someone nearby looked at him with surprise.

"Wait, aren't you exhausted?"

Kai looked over, eyebrow raised. "Why would I be?"

"You didn't… struggle?"

Kai shrugged. "I'm aiming to be just forgettable enough to survive."

The guy blinked. "That's… kinda smart?"

Kai smiled slightly. "It's smarter than being heroic."

He leaned back, earbuds back in, blocking out the noise of names, ranks, and false dreams.

Mediocrity had never felt so strategic.