He tells Furlan and Isabel to stay behind so that the formation does not notice all three of them abandoning their position.
Levi hits all of these benchmarks with flying colors, even outranking some of the actual villains in Attack on Titan.
I believe he is also in his 40s and 30s, which means he is not growing as well and has thus been quite short.
Still, it's amusing to look back at just how vehemently Levi once hated a man who eventually became one of his most-respected comrades.
This was quite strange, seeing as how he barely knew these characters.
Unfortunately, when the trio fought against the titans.