The narrator tells the boy that he has two choices: he can either run away and die fighting the bandits or he can stay calm and wait for the bandits to attack. The boy wants to join in the fight, but he doesn't know how to do it. He tells his mother that he's going to send the boy to her right away. The narrator says that being "soft-hearted" is a mistake, but that being soft-hearted is also a mistake. He says that he hasn't yet figured out how to deal with all the bandits at once, so he'll have to wait and see what happens. He's not going to kill them all, he says, but at least he won't have to worry about whether or not they're for the family or for himself. The little boy tells the narrator that he and his friends have defeated the bandits. They're willing to acknowledge the narrator as their master, even though he lost his way in the end. He asks the boy why he saved them, and the boy says that his fate is in his own hands. He wants to know why he should take care of them all.