I really dislike her attitude toward her adopted family. By all means she is entitled to either get revenge or ignore them, what doesnt make sense to me is that I feel like she’s projecting her hate toward her past family into the duke family. Everything she does is a projection. As someone who always think that it’s only a game, weird how she cant differentiate her feeling from the alternate world and the game world.

Other thing that turns me off is her manipulation of Eclise. She destroyed him. And got the gall to be mad at him for betraying her (out of love or obsession rather). Who was the one intercepting his plot line and made him a mere s*ave without the opportunity to free himself? Who made constant promise to see him but often failed him? Eclise was an ab*sed war prisoner turned s*ave who latched on the only person who showered him with kindness, Penelope was very manipulative of him. Always reiterating that he is important to him, showering him with gifts but also neglecting him. For her mistreatment of eclise, penelope should have suffered

Her family started to change and treat her better but how she thinks them as a bad person.

I can really see why the crown prince is the ML. The interactions with Penny was not forced. The chemistry they have and the story of how it came to be is the best among all the ML. If you're still early in the novel, you'll see soon why.

"I'm going to hosting this hunt."

I'm going to host this hunt

"And underneath it sat people in strange clothes. It seemed to be royalty who had been in another country."

And underneath it sat people in strange clothes. They seem to be royalties from foreign countries.

Frankly speaking, I had a big wish that Eckliss would stop saying anything

Frankly speaking, I wish that Eckliss would stop talking or adding more fuel on the fire.

The Duke of Eckart has 3 children - 2 sons and a daughter. The two sons, Derrick and Leonard, lost their sister, Yvonne, during a festival and she was taken over by a demon called Leila. While looking for his missing daughter, the Duke found Penelope, a beggar girl living in poverty and found her a bit similar to Yvonne so he adopted her. However, his two teenage sons thought Penelope was going to take their sister's place so they hated her and ab*sed her. The Duke is a failure of a father and neglected her. The servants were aware of the masters' thoughts so they also ab*sed Penelope, physically and mentally tormenting her for years. She was served rotten food so she always starved. Her bath water was always cold and she was waken up everyday by being stabbed with a needle in her arm to the point she has a permanent blue bruise from all the stabbings.

The ab*se also spread outside as people noticed that no one really cared about Penelope, so when she attended events with other nobles, she was also ab*sed and manipulated. (The girl never got a break!) She was, many times, manipulated into disadvantageous situations but no one in the Dukedom ever defended her or even listened to her. They just painted her as a crazy dog they need to clean after.

Unbeknownst to them, Penelope actually had ancient wizard's blood in her which allowed her to see the truth, even though no one believed her. So she became the only sane person surrounded by people who keep insisting she's the crazy one.

As she grew up, her two adoptive brothers, Derrick and Leonard, lust after her but since they had been abusing her, making her live lower than a s*ave, they can't stand their own lustfulness. So the ab*se became even more severe with s*xual undertone. For one, any of the men in the house could enter her room without her permission, even the butler. The brothers also gave her gifts but acted shocked when she didn't immediately like them back. Like they're thinking "We stop abusing you for 2 seconds. We also give you this pretty thing. Why you don't love us?!"

Flash forward to Yvonne coming back with the help of the wizard - Vinter. But remember it was not actually Yvonne, it's Leila demon who hypnotized and brainwashed everyone. The only person she couldn't brainwash was Penelope due to her ancient blood but since no one cares about Penelope anyway, she was made into the villain and died by the male lead's hands. Later, Vinter was able to wake up from the brainwash and decided to turn back time in order to stop the demon from taking over the world.

It was unclear whether Penelope was aware she was reborn. But roughly 3 months before Yvonne/demon came back, Penelope died due to severe mistreatment of the Eckart, that's when the MC took over her body. This time, instead of angry outbursts when she's mistreated, the MC grovel herself to the ground and tried to lick these male lead's feet to increase her favorability with them. Apparently, if she's able to gain 100 favorability points with a male lead, she could escape the game and return home.

For some weird reasons, the groveling on the floor seemed to work and at least the people in the Eckart stopped abusing her. Her life was at least bearable now. The duke became a bit more attentive. Derrick and Leonard still lust after her though, and become even more obvious to the point my skin crawled anytime she was alone with either of them.

The MC remembered the other male lead - Eclise, a s*ave who was given to her as an escort instead of a proper knight - seemed to be the only guy who ever treated Penelope with some empathy in the first life, so she made him her main capture target and tried to reach end-game with him before Yvonne come back. Meanwhile she also met other capture targets and raised some favorability with them as well. She became friendly with the wizard and had a mutual crush with the Crown Prince who seemed to be the only person who treated her as an actual human being.

There was this subplot where Penelope was manipulated by a Countess into acting like a crazy person. In order to suppress the news and without listening to her explanation, the Duke gave the Countess his diamond mine and of course, Penny was blamed for the whole situation. In the second life, the crown prince investigated the whole ordeal and learned the truth that the whole thing was a plot the Countess planned to get that diamond mine. And he was like "I didn't even try. It's a pretty clear setup." It was never a clever plot to trap Penelope, the Duke and his sons just purposefully ignored Penny, finding it easier and more to their liking to believe that she's a mad dog below them.

The Crown Prince was the only male character with critical thinking ability as he was in a similar situation. His mother died and the second queen and her som tried to assassinate him all the time, so he has to always be alerted. Their chemistry is actually pretty good. The MC and the prince often have actual conversations, not just banters, and they helped each other a lot.

Anyway, back to Eclise, her main target. The plan backfired because Eclise knew she was using him and didn't treat him wholeheartedly. He became obsessed with her, knowing she manipulated him but still liked the attention he got and wanted to have her anyway. So he was lured by Yvonne/demon and betrayed the MC, being the one who brought Yvonne back to the family. As a result, the MC severed ties with Eclise and it's game over for her. She could no longer go back home as she failed to reach end game with Eclise.

Since Yvonne is back, the MC was put in awkward position as the "fake" and Yvonne was being really creepy white lotus who cried all the time, acting like she was bullied by MC. Tired of having to grovel all the time, the MC decided to forcefully leave the game by committing su*cide. However, during an event, she noticed Yvonne/demon was trying to create a self-play drinking poison and blaming the MC, so she snatched that glass and drank the poison herself.

This became a pivotal moment as (1) the crown prince confessed he loved her, meaning she could have reached end-game with him all these times had she made him her target; (2) the wizard realized Yvonne was a demon in disguise and decided to help her; (3) Eclise became insane due to brainwashing; (4) the duke and his sons realized how much she had suffered under their ab*se and neglect. Now they all just want her to not die. And she didn't die as the wizard had an antidote with him.

After she recovered, she asked the duke to let her leave the house but before she got approved, the MC and Yvonne confronted, ending up with MC leaving the house to find ways to kill the demon. She and the crown prince traveled together and MC confessed that she was not the real Penelope and that she came from a different world. They had a final showdown and eventually defeated the demon, killing Yvonne's body in the process.

During the aftermath, the MC stayed in palace with the prince and they got engaged. She severed ties with the duke and let him know she couldn't forgive him and the entire dukedom for abusing her for years. They had a somewhat pleasant relationship though as Duke Eckart is still her maiden family. Later she became a professor in archaeology, married the prince/emperor, and had a daughter.

In the side story, it was revealed that her original body was in a coma for years. Her father and stepbrothers had taken care of her body. They also felt sorry for how they treated her. The MC came back to pull the plug and put her comatose body to the final rest. She didn't forgive them but also didn't hold any resentment either. The end.

She makes them all love her (except Renold, who loves her like a sister, and the father, obviously) and then she abandons them after they're no longer useful and even tries to find the worst ways and words to crush some of them.

I hate the eldest brother the most. You son of a b*tch, deserve to rot in hell.

I love, love, love, love the ML. He is perfect for her.