The ones at fault are the darkness, and that world is her real home she longed for. If the secret item is indeed with his family, it could be he broke free of the curse.
"Death is the only ending for the villainess"
Penelope is not the villainess, the darkness is- and until that dies the darkness wont have an ending because of the loop.
Oh, how mad I was when I hit the latest update... I assumed it was finished, whaaah! I'm captivated by the story.
I was squealing delighted as I worked to ch118, so happy and very happy the author worked to such in a nice yet not extremely long way. Yay!