My Calling Is Profiler [EN]: Chapter 589

There are dozens of textbooks, and their content varies.

Math and science are somewhat easier because the content and formulas are fixed. However, in Korean language studies, the included literary works differ, and even with the same work, the interpretations can vary. It involves subjective, emotional interpretation.

For example, in a question like, ‘What is the speaker’s emotion in work A?’ textbook ‘Ga’ might explain it as emotion ‘1,’ while textbook ‘Na’ might describe it as emotion ‘2.’

Naturally, when setting exam questions, specifying ‘according to which textbook’ is avoided. The moment that happens, the textbooks in subsequent years will all switch to that company’s textbook to align with the exam’s interpretation.

“But think about it. What would happen if you could accurately predict the trend of the university entrance exam?”

If one entity could predict the exam trend?

From then on, students would flock to that academy the following year.

“But how much money would that really generate?”

“Of course, there are limits if it’s an offline academy. But what about online? If there’s a teacher who consistently predicts the university entrance exam trends, and rumors spread that they’re spot-on, how much revenue do you think they’d make the following year?”

It would explode, of course. In fact, even now, so-called top-tier instructors are making tens of billions, even hundreds of billions of won [approximately millions to hundreds of millions of US dollars].

“Just once. All it takes is one accurate prediction to become a sensation.”

If they promote that success, hundreds of thousands of online lectures will be sold. With that money, they can either pull off another scheme or bribe exam committee members to bring them on board.

“And if they do that for just two or three years, they’ll become prestigious.”

Whether it’s right to call an academy ‘prestigious’ is debatable, but at least that academy would be making hundreds of billions of won.

“An academy, you say?”

“Yes, an online academy.”

At those words, the NIS [National Intelligence Service] agent’s eyes wavered. It was something they hadn’t considered at all.

“But how did you come up with that idea?”

“Isn’t that what you wanted? A breakthrough?”

The traces of the criminal that they couldn’t find. That was exactly what they were asking for. And that’s exactly what profilers do.

“So, I kept inquiring about suspicious areas.”

Park Do-joon was investigating who could benefit from this incident by talking to people.

“Benefit, huh……”

“Yes, this is important.”

All crimes, especially property crimes, inevitably have someone who benefits.

“Distribution network, and benefit……”

The NIS agents looked completely taken aback.

‘Figures.’

What’s important to them is loyalty to the country and rooting out spies, not tracking down profit-driven crimes. At most, they’re arresting guys who take money and hand over state secrets.

“But in this case, the safest and purest way to gain a big profit is through online lectures.”

If you hit it big just once, a huge number of people will watch the broadcast. The top-tier instructors who give the lectures are making tens of billions of won, so how much would the platform broadcasting it make? Several times that amount.

“But if that’s the case, wouldn’t there be no reason for them to commit the crime there?”

If they’re making that much money, they shouldn’t commit crimes because the risk outweighs the potential gains, as you said earlier.

“I thought so too, but the story is a bit different. This is all old news.”

“Old?”

“Population decline.”

The value of people called top-tier instructors is based on their heyday. A time when countless people were watching, and most people were fixated on entrance exams.

“But now the population has decreased dramatically. You can see it just by looking at Noryangjin [a district in Seoul famous for its cram schools], right? You two didn’t get into the NIS by playing ddakji [a Korean game similar to Pogs], did you?”

“Well……”

Indeed, just going to Noryangjin, you can see that the rooms there are empty and the academies are going out of business. The restaurants in Noryangjin’s cram school district, which were thought to never fail, started to go out of business as the population decreased and the number of test-takers decreased accordingly.

“Of course, it’s also true that many people have moved to online lectures, but the population has decreased even more than that.”

Anyone who has been to an academy in Noryangjin’s cram school district knows that there were times when 200 people would cram into one classroom to take a class.

Naturally, the lecture wasn’t visible from the back, so they installed TVs in the middle and followed the class while watching them. But in that case, online lectures are more advantageous and convenient. At least with online lectures, you can keep replaying them until you understand.

Considering Korea’s education culture, where there’s hardly any time to ask the teacher questions, online lectures are more cost-effective.

“But even so, some places are in the red because the population has decreased.”

“In the red?”

“Yes. Surprising, isn’t it?”

These were once online lecture companies that raised hundreds of billions of won every year from all over the country, but as the competition intensified, some began to collapse.

“When the market shrinks, a survival-of-the-fittest structure inevitably emerges.”

The companies have already become behemoths. But if those behemoths have less to eat, they naturally fight over smaller morsels, and a behemoth with less to eat is bound to die.

“If a company goes bankrupt, the impact is enormous.”

It’s not just that employees lose their jobs. In the case of the CEO, there’s a high possibility that they’ll become completely unable to recover. The market has become too small to start over again.

“It’s also why capitalization and gigantification are progressing so rapidly.”

Because I have to survive, I have to bring in top-tier instructors with expensive contracts, and that’s why fights break out. Once the poaching of instructors begins, naturally the ones who can offer more money and the ones with more assets win.

“Once you start losing in the power game, a kind of vicious cycle begins where the company’s survival becomes uncertain.”

It’s no secret that small places gradually run out of capital, and big places gradually eat up the entire market, eventually leading to a monopoly.

“And most of the exam committee members know about that issue.”

“Ah!”

Of course. Even if they’re new, they’ll be skilled enough, and if they’ve been there several times, they’ll have been approached and recruited, so they’ll have looked into the market here and there.

“And if rumors spread that they’ve accurately predicted the exam trends, their sales the following year will be in the hundreds of billions.”

“Hundreds of billions?”

“Yes.”

And with that kind of money, they can make a comeback and fight against the other giant companies again. Now that they’re shrinking instead.

“But if they directly put out the questions, they’ll get caught, right?”

“Yes, but it’s not difficult to change the questions slightly.”

For example, as a joke, if there’s a question about calculating the impact force when Young-hee saves Cheol-soo from a meteorite falling from the sky, it becomes a problem if you put it out as is.

But the story changes if you change Young-hee and Cheol-soo to Min-ji and Ye-ji, and change the meteorite to a train.

The speed at which the train is running is different, and the names of the people appearing are different, but basically, the formula for calculating the impact force is the same for both meteorites and trains.

“And in that case, it’s impossible to track.”

“It just remains as suspicion, is that it?”

“Yes.”

Because the method of calculating that impact force is clearly part of the high school curriculum.

It’s just that you don’t know if it will appear on the university entrance exam or not.

“Exam trends are like that.”

That this formula will come out or this theory will come out, accurately predicting that is a huge advantage in the entrance exam market.

“Hundreds of billions of won come and go with just that……”

“The private education market in Korea is said to be 2 trillion won [approximately 2 billion US dollars]. Is the Korean drug market 2 trillion won?”

Of course not. But there are tons of guys risking their lives to eat that up. If you can eat up a 2 trillion won market, what couldn’t you do?

“But teachers are doing that?”

“Let’s get the words right. This isn’t the realm of teachers, it’s the realm of businessmen.”

Students aren’t in front of them, they’re just looking at a monitor in an unseen place. So, can the teacher check and care for that? No way. Do they even know one of the names of the students who bought it?

“Private education is already a business. There’s no place for teachers there.”

And unethical things are countless in business.

“Of course, they probably didn’t intend to kill from the beginning.”

In fact, the victim died from hitting their head on the corner of the table as they were pushed and fell, not from being intentionally murdered.

“Then we need to dig into that area.”

“Of course, it won’t be easy.”

There’s no evidence that they leaked university entrance exam questions there and came here to take pictures. And exam trends can’t be evidence. In fact, it’s true that many academies research exam trends every year, and they often get it right.

“So, let’s start by thinking about where and how the criminal will move.”

“Should we look for people who stayed in short-term accommodations?”

But that would create too many leads. No, even if we track them, there’s no evidence that they took pictures.

This is a tourist destination. Naturally, many people carry cameras. No matter how much the times have changed and cell phone cameras have improved, people who like cameras still use cameras.

“Still, there are too many.”

Park Do-joon sighed deeply at those words. It was because the two still weren’t getting it.

“As I said before, this side and that side have no way to communicate. So, what do the guys here have to do?”

“Yes?”

“The pictures were taken at night. Naturally, they don’t know when they can take the pictures, when they’ll come out. So, what do they have to do at night?”

At those words, the two people’s eyes widened.

“You two are thinking the opposite way. Instead of sleeping at night and working during the day, those guys have to work at night and sleep during the day. But this is a tourist destination.”

“Ah!”

How many people would rest without traveling and playing during the day?

Naturally, there would be almost none.

“There may be many guests with cameras, but almost no one goes out at night.”

Of course, the owners of motels or hotels don’t check who’s going out or coming in, but the entry and exit records are all recorded on the computer.

“We can dig into that area.”

“Yes, that’s right. There will probably be at most 3 teams? About 4 teams.”

“That many?”

“There are more people who go out at night to do their jobs than you think.”

Park Do-joon shrugged and said.

“But that’s enough to track.”