The narrator catches up with the hero and learns that the hero is an instructor in the military training college. The narrator tells the hero that he was once the first to defeat a titan, and that if he were publicly punished, the military police would be mistrustful of them. If exile beyond the wall were not reserved for special prisoners, then exile would mean death. The hero tells the narrator that he is free to choose his military assignment after he graduates from the college. Many politicians and merchants, he says, want their sons "to at ease" . He tells the story of how his son and his friend, the hero's son, had the same opinion as he did. The two men need the machine that pulled them up.