>>35178087The card game could have been done much better. It's substituting the foreplay, and it's doing it poorly.
>Towa was familiar with the rules of Oicho-Kabu; [explanation]Readers aware of the metaplot know the card game is irrelevant, so either skip the rules or work them into the story.
Either way, something should be done to invest the reader. As it is, it's incredibly lazy to state ahead of time that it was rigged, a pre-cursed deck is a boring solution. Consider this sequence:
>Heheh, Towa thought. He may be a lust demon, but he's no card shark. As long as I have this Suck card and this Fuck card, I'm unstoppable.>"Let's end this," she said with a confident grin, betting to the limit. She revealed her cards, only for Asmodeus to reveal a Feed and a Seed.>"No way..." she breathed out in despair. It was a 1. [...]>In truth, the deck was cursed [...]But that's only with what's already established. Watch this:
>[...] and if you attempt to perform any trickery I WILL know [...]It's also disappointing that this is a hook that goes nowhere, because he says there will be a worse punishment (which doesn't happen), vs
>"My eyes are sharper than you can even imagine, don't even think about trying any tricks of your own." Into...
>[...] Did you truly believe you could challenge one of the princes of Hell with no risk? You yourself tried to cheat, even when I was so gracious as to warn you that I could see right through you and your cards.">It was the one truthful thing the archdemon had told her. He saw all and knew what every card on the table was from the beginning. The game hadn't gone well for Towa, he *let* the game go well for her. Pretending he didn't catch her peeking, feigning ignorance to her awkward shuffling, allowing himself to be brought to the brink of defeat, only to send everything crashing down at the very end. The process of playing with her emotions, making her dance on a fool's stage... it delighted him to no end. 