"The Snow Goblin Legend Murder Case" is the first case arc in "The Kindaichi Case Files R" series of The Kindaichi Case Files.
When a fellow student from the same grade as Kindaichi and Miyuki shows up with a broken leg after an accident, she suggests for Kindaichi and Miyuki to join as guides in her stead for a ski resort program on top of Snow Goblin peaks, which is sponsored by an online advertising organization, as she already had been accepted as a guide before her accident, Miyuki has also been accepted as a guide after said fellow student sent her photos to the corporate executive, and Kindaichi imposes himself for the program the moment he hears that boys are also accepted for it. Together with several others, Kindaichi and Miyuki head for the ski resort that's located in the Kohoku region, not knowing that the plot for a serial murder is already in progress.
Tropes include:
- Bait-and-Switch Silhouette: After managing to see Sabaki's laptop files, Miyuki offers to take the laptop to her own cottage and look more into the files while Hajime does more fieldwork. The culprit, however, has overheard them and, disguised as the snow goblin, attacks Miyuki as she's alone in her cottage. Upon hearing her scream, Kindaichi quickly makes his way to her cottage and encounters a silhouette, which makes him wonder whether it's the snow goblin he's meeting... before the silhouette gives away to indicate Miyuki, shaken by the attack and slightly disheveled due to the snowy weather outside but otherwise unharmed.
- Bungled Suicide: The culprit's fate at the end of the case turns out to be this, as he detonates a bomb that causes an avalanche which in turn buries him, but he's quickly found near an open space and airlifted into a hospital where he recovers. As luck would have it, the shock-wave of the bomb that causes an avalanche also sends Sayaka Yukihara's skis to a spot near the culprit, making it easy to find and rescue him.
- The Casanova: Self-invoked. After becoming a wealthy and handsome CEO, the culprit started a rumor about himself being a playboy in order to ward off any potential unwanted female advances.
- Conveniently an Orphan: The culprit's parents were both dead when the culprit was young, but he was financially secure and worked as an ethical online hacker, so the burden for self-support was not an issue, though he had no social life before meeting Sayaka Yukihara.
- Creepypasta: The legend of the snow goblin, which one participant discovers online before disclosing to all early in the case arc, is actually a Ghost Story that the culprit had posted and spread online, in an attempt to provide deflective backup to ward off suspicion from others.note
- Destroy the Evidence: As Kindaichi reveals during The Summation, the culprit, disguised as the snow goblin, attacks Miyuki while she looks through Sabaki's files that are stored in his laptop by herself, but the real motive is to destroy the laptop in order to prevent her from finding out information about Sayaka Yukihara, the girl whose death is the motive for the culprit.
- Driven to Suicide: Subverted.
- Sayaka Yukihara's death was reported as suicide, but it turns out she died from an accident. That being said, the culprit doesn't find out until Kindaichi shows him a comment sent by her that proves the truth behind her demise.
- After finding out the truth behind Yukihara's doom, he detonates a bomb that causes an avalanche with the intention of dying underneath the heavy snow surge, but it ends up being a Bungled Suicide.
- Drowning Pit: The COTTAGE the culprit tricks the first victim into entering turns out to be a watery Death Trap due to it being built on top of a frozen pond, and it functions as such after the heat in the cottage is turned on, melting the ice below said cottage and letting the pond water seep into it, submerging cottage and drowning the victim within it.
- For the Evulz: Kaito Sabaki is an internet flamer who takes glee out of slandering prominent figures and even causing them to kill themselves, one of his victims being Sayaka Yukihara, the girl whose death is the motive for the culprit. While it turns out said victim hadn't killed herself over the slander (she'd actually died from a genuine skiing accident), it's hard to feel sorry for him considering his character.
- Formerly Fat: As the culprit states, Sayaka Yukihara was a plump girl when they met two years ago. Shortly before her untimely death, she had already slimmed down and become a model.
- Four Eyes, Zero Soul: Kaito Sabaki, a Jerkass whose only known "hobby" is spreading Malicious Slander online For the Evulz, wears glasses. While it's downplayed since he's not a murderer per se, the fact he gleefully relishes in ruining the lives of those he targets, up to and including causing some of them to become Driven to Suicide makes it difficult to sympathize with him once his past deeds have come to light after he's found dead.
- Green-Eyed Monster: Among the people the culprit targets for his serial murder, two of them are from the same high school Sayaka Yukihara attended. Both of them bullied her in the past, and one of them shared pictures of Yukihara online after she became a model, which became a source of Sabaki's Malicious Slander against her.
- Loners Are Freaks:
- Played straight with Kaito Sabaki, a friendless Jerkass whose only notable hobby is to spread Malicious Slander online For the Evulz.
- In the backstory, the culprit was a reclusive ethical hacker who rarely ventured out of his own residence — until Sayaka Yukihara entered his life.
- Malicious Slander: Kaito Sabaki loves spreading slander online against prominent figures, as Kindaichi and Miyuki discover to their disgust when they look through his stored laptop data after the culprit kills him.
- Never Found the Body: According to a professional skier who's among the participants in this case arc, a legend goes that there was a small village half a century ago being located near where the ski resort is in the present day, but nearly all of its inhabitants disappeared on one snowy night, save for a twelve-year-old girl, who became the Sole Survivor among all of the villagers. It's been believed that this was a mass murder, but none of the bodies among the disappeared villages has ever been found, and that a demonic entity known around the region as "snow goblin" was the culprit.
- Never Suicide: Subverted in this case, as Sayaka Yukihara's death turns out to have been the result of an accident.
- Not the First Victim: While Sabaki is the first confirmed murder victim with the body found, he's actually the second victim in this murder case, for a girl who goes missing shortly after everyone gathers at the ski resort is the first person to fall victim in this case, as Kindaichi reveals during The Summation and gets her body discovered as well with help from some others.
- The Password Is Always "Swordfish": When Hajime and Miyuki come across Sabaki's personal laptop after the latter has fallen victim to murder, they're greeted with the screen requiring the correct password in order to open and view his files. Kindaichi recounts seeing Sabaki fiddling with his own smartphone in order to enter the password to it in order to unlock it and that Sabaki moved one finger vertically to do so, from which he deduces that the password of choice is "2580". Hajime then inputs the same code on the laptop... and it works at once.Miyuki: He probably used the same password so he'd remember it clearly. Even I do the same.
Kindaichi: Bad habit. - Poor Communication Kills: When the news of Sayaka Yukihara's suicide surfaced, the culprit took it at face value. In the present time, Kindaichi shows him a comment on a forum posted by Yukihara herself shortly before her untimely demise that he missed, which proves that Yukihara's death was the result of an accident, not suicide.
- Sealed Room in the Middle of Nowhere: In this case, the "room" is an entire cottage. The Death Trap that the culprit has in store for the first victim involves a cottage being built on top of a frozen pond he has said victim tricked into entering since it's nearby a different and safer one, before setting the heater in said cottage up and causing the heat generated from the trick cottage to turn it into a Drowning Pit, as the heat melts the icy layer of the pond below it over time, causing the water to enter the cottage, which eventually becomes submerged, drowning the girl within it.
- Seesaw Catapult: After one girl has been ruled as missing, something suddenly crashes through a glass window before landing on the floor, providing Jump Scare to everyone, with the object in question being identified as a bloody cleaver. Shortly after Sabaki is found murdered, Hajime and Miyuki scour the snow-covered ground outside the resort cottage and discover a wooden bucket, from which Kindaichi deduces that a short wooden plank was placed on a rock to imitate a seesaw, the bloody cleaver on the lower side of said plank, and the bucket on the higher side, and that the heating system in the resort cottage caused the snow to melt and fall into the bucket, giving the bucket enough weight to launch the cleaver into the interior for all to witness.
- Serious Business: One of the participants is so obsessed with skiing that, when it's discovered that everyone's skis are missing and all other communication accesses to the outside world are cut off or otherwise made unavailable in the upcoming days, her primary concern is being unable to ski.
- She Cleans Up Nicely: A gender-equal scenario in this case. In the backstory two years ago, Sayaka Yukihara was a plump girl and the culprit was a recluse who didn't venture outside much and was neglectful about his appearance as the result. After the two of them met, they both cleaned up, and it shows: Yukihara was a Formerly Fat girl who has become a model and the culprit has changed into a wealthy online advertising CEO with a handsome visage.
- Skewed Priorities: The biggest worry for one female participant about the news of the area where they stay becoming a Closed Circle is not being able to ski, as skiing is Serious Business for her.
- Snow Means Death:
- Exploited by the culprit, who chose a time when heavy snowfall would take place to host the ski resort program. The reasons, which Kindaichi reveals during The Summation, are to count on the falling snow to cover his tracks as he moves and give himself an alibi and, should his plan become derailed, use the local legend of the snow goblin as backup to clear himself of suspicion.
- Moreover, the cottage on top of a frozen pond would be hidden after it becomes submerged under it in the frigid weather once the culprit uses it to commit a murder on a girl one night. Even if the cold wind alone doesn't re-freeze the pond water quickly enough, the heavy snowfall would cover the pond (and, by extension, the cottage and the victim submerged underneath it) before anyone manages to find out anything is amiss the next morning.
- Finally, the culprit detonates a remote bomb that causes an avalanche after Kindaichi shows him proof that the death of Sayaka Yukihara, the girl he cares for, was due to an accident. He intends to die in the avalanche, but the same remote bomb blast also sends Yukihara's skis near where he ends up, making the search and rescue effort for him easy and turning his suicide attempt into a Bungled Suicide.
- Trail of Blood: During the serial murder case, Kindaichi and co. discover a trail of bloodstains leading to an old hut that's used for storage — for coffins, to be precise, with one of them containing Sabaki's corpse.
- Troll: Kaito Sabaki's only known "hobby" is to gleefully spread online Malicious Slander against prominent figures For the Evulz, with Sayaka being only one target out of many, marking him as a full-fledged Asshole Victim once his past deeds are exposed after he falls victim to murder.
- Yank the Dog's Chain: Played for Laughs. After the murder case concludes, Kindaichi complains about not getting paid for the part-time work at the ski resort, only for Kenmochi, who had just received the paychecks for Kindaichi and Miyuki from the CEO's secretary shortly before meeting them, to hand the checks to them. Kindaichi is excited about the prospect of using the money from his paycheck to buy a video game, but Miyuki snatches it away before the check is even in his hand, claiming that he owes her money and the paycheck can pay off his debt. The case arc ends with Kindaichi chasing Miyuki for his paycheck.
