I, The Villainess, Will Seduce All The Heroines Instead
Chapter 79: What Should I Do? (Penelope’s POV)

Chapter 79: What Should I Do? (Penelope’s POV)

***

"I have no interest in her."

Those were the first words her father ever uttered about her, spoken coldly while he held her mother’s trembling hands, as if Penelope were nothing more than an afterthought.

"Papa!"

"Can we play?"

"Is papa busy?"

She reached for him with small, hopeful hands. But he never reached back.

Her mother, soft-spoken and frail, was the Emperor’s fifth concubine. A girl sold for her beauty, not her worth.

A caged songbird too timid to fly, too tired to sing.

When Penelope awakened her powers, she thought, naively, that it would change everything.

Though her magic was not as astonishing or fearsome as her siblings’, it was her beauty that stirred kingdoms and bent the will of men.

A beauty that became her weapon, her armor, her curse.

If he would not love her for her gifts, then he would see her.

So she stood taller. Louder. Crueler.

"Stand up straight, commoner!"

"What are the likes of you doing here?"

Every insult, every scornful glance, was a desperate cry for attention. A girl trying to carve space in a father’s blind gaze.

Bit by bit, the Emperor began to notice.

But with every ounce of his approval, she lost something far more precious.

She lost warmth.

She lost softness.

She lost the flicker of kindness in others’ eyes.

And when she looked around... there was no one left.

What was she supposed to do, now that she had become everything he wanted.

And nothing she needed?

Her mother, delicate and voiceless, was seen as little more than a pretty ornament, easily overlooked and easier still to discard.

Because of that, no one truly respected Penelope. Not in court, not in the palace, not even in passing glances.

And her father...

A man of shifting shadows.

One day, he looked at her with something like pride.

The next, she was air. Unseen, unheard, unacknowledged.

Her siblings shone too brightly. She couldn’t even catch their silhouettes.

"Hey, Meliopold, did you see what I did to coach?"

"Idiot! You flung him into the lake! Now Father has to hire another one."

"How about you, Penelope?"

She opened her mouth and no words came.

She was never fast enough, never fierce enough, never enough.

The other concubines watched her like hawks with painted talons.

They smelled the weakness in her blood, inherited from her mother, and they smiled with venom hidden beneath powdered grace.

She tried. She fought.

But every time, she failed.

Every stumble was ammunition. Every silence, a strike.

And still, she kept standing.

Because no matter how hollow the palace became, no matter how far her father’s gaze drifted.

She refused to disappear.

"H–Help..."

Penelope’s voice had cracked in the silence, swallowed by the dark.

She had been taken, ripped away at just sixteen.

The ransom was sent, demands made. But the week dragged on in shadows and dust, and no one came.

She overheard whispers. That her father barely stirred. That he showed no urgency.They said he worried. But worry had no footsteps. Worry sent no search parties.

So she wept.Because she was small. Because she was soft. Because she had always been... weak.

What else could she do?

"Princess Penelope!"

The door shattered open, and in the blood-slick glow of twilight, he stood.A storm of golden hair. Eyes like burning rubies. His sword, drenched in flame and fury.

One by one, her captors fell.He did not hesitate.

To her, he looked like a god descending from war itself.

When she returned to the palace, the whispers changed.

Raphael Huliet. The Duke’s son. The empire’s golden commander-in-the-making.

And that day, something inside her shifted.

She had always chased attention. Fought for scraps of affection.But he burned too brightly to be ignored.

If she stood beside him, maybe the world would stop looking past her.Maybe she would no longer be just another forgotten girl from a forgotten concubine.

But there was one thing in her way.

He was engaged.

Not to her.

Not to anyone weak.

"The one I’m in love with... is Evelyn!" Raphael’s voice echoed, raw and clear.

The world tilted. Not gently, but as if the sky itself had collapsed upon her.

Gasps rose like a wave behind her, and in that moment, it was done.

He had chosen.

And it was not her.

How had she not seen it sooner?

She thought she was clever. Graceful, practiced, radiant. But none of that had mattered. Not to him.

Not when Evelyn, soft-spoken and tremulous, had stolen his gaze.

Then came the thought.

The poisonous, glimmering thought.

If I cannot have the light... I will take it from her.

What was light, after all, if not something that could be stolen? Bent? Broken?

She knew how to do it. She had always known.

The whispers sharpened. Her cruelty, once veiled in silk, became weaponized. A cold performance refined by years of being ignored.

"You’re just a filthy girl. Someone like you doesn’t deserve Raphael."

She pushed Evelyn down. Drowned her in fountains. Slapped her in corridors. Mocked her in front of courtly eyes.

And Evelyn cried. Trembled. Shrank.

But Penelope didn’t stop.

Because every humiliation, every tear shed by the girl he loved... made her feel something.

Relief. A terrible, aching relief.

It was never about Evelyn. Not truly.It was about what Evelyn represented.

Love undeserved, affection misplaced, a mirror reflecting everything Penelope secretly was, but somehow received what she desired.

And destroying her felt like reclaiming power.Like screaming into the void that had never once called her name.

On her eighteenth birthday, the world unraveled.

Everything she had fought for, clawed at, was now lost.

"I get it now..."

The thief, the light, It was either was Raphael. Nor Evelyn.

It was Verena.

The woman who had stolen Raphael’s at first, who now claimed Evelyn as her own.

And in the end, that same woman took away what Penelope had longed to build, to control.

The greatest thief, the greatest betrayer.

That wretched, heartless bitch.

***