Normally I hate the "former MLs became assholes because of mind magic" trope, but now I don't really mind it becase, honestly, all the MLs are pretty supurfluous and the most important characters are the female ones.The manhua seems to be still ongoing (although it seems to be close to the end) so I'll give some spoilers up to the current chapter:
As someone mention she's been acting shady. In fact, she's been trying to kill Rutas. Because Kama is actually the OG Molly.
OG Molly had always been raised to believe that her only value was as the future Crown Princess. Luckily the Crown Prince was always very affectionate and kind to her so she felt like he was her only light and loved him more than anything. Then Rutas entered the picture and Molly was bullied at school and also lost the Crown Prince's affection. She became depressed, because without him she was now "worthless", so she jumped in the lake intending to drown. But as she was sinking she looked up and saw that her best friend, Kama, had jumped into after her to save her. Molly realized that she had forgotten that Kama had always been by her side, telling her she had more worth than just as "crown princess", and trying to make her smile. She suddenly regretted committing suicide and wanted to live and stay with Kama.
She then blacked out and when she woke up again she was in Kama's body and the real Kama was gone. The last thing she remembers is Kama telling her to live well and be happy. Molly was filled with guilt and anger. She blamed Rutas, the Crown Prince, and herself for Kama dying/dissapearing. So she planned to kill Rutas, CP, and then herself.
See AlsoGive the Harem to the Villainess || PL - wikulyssSpoiler - Death Is The Only Ending For The VillainTowards the end she pushes CP down the stairs and then sets a fire, planning to kill Rutas and cover it up with the fire. But MC disguised herself as Rutas and caught her. That's when MC found out the truth about Kama = OG Molly and about OG Molly's murder-suicide plan. She scolds OG Molly that this is not what Kama wanted for her and that she was just running away by planning to die. OG Molly says she can't stand seeing Rutas happy when she's the root of everything that caused Kama to die. MC tells her that making Rutas pay for her crimes is "Molly's" job. OG Molly has already abandoned "Molly's" body and become Kama, so she should bear the heavy burder of Kama's wish for her and live well as Kama, and leave dealing with Rutas to MC as the new "Molly".
Like FL, the Rutas we see in the story is also a transmigrator from the modern "real" world. When she reveals this to FL, FL asks her what her goal is, does she want to be loved by everyone or does she have some kind of system or is she trying to get back to their original world? But Rutas reveals that it's none of those "worthless" reasons and says that she hates both this world and their original world and would like to see them both destroyed.
We then get Rutas' backstory.
She was originally a high school student. She had a difficult home life, due to her parents always fighting with each other and neglecting her in the process. She developed a crush on a boy at school and gave him a love letter, but he ripped it up in front of her and mocked her for actually daring to confess to him. He also mocked her infront of other people so it spread around school and she started being bullied. Not just being ignored, but like hardcore bullying. She would get beat up and even cut. One time, a bunch of girls cornered her in the bathroom, forced her to eat the torn up pieces of her love letter, and then forced her to eat actual poop out of the toilet while she vomitted and begged them to stop. She reported the bullying to the teacher + principal, but they said the students were from "good backgronds" and wouldn't do such things and didn't do anything about it.
Someone happened to film the bathroom incident and posted it online thought, so the truth came out. The bullies were expelled and the teacher + principal were fired, but that didn't change the fact that Rutas had been traumatized, so she stopped going to school. The mom felt regret about not paying more attention to her daughter, so she divorced the dad and tried to be more supportive of her daughter. For a little while things started to get better for Rutas. She found a new hobby playing otome games (the same one she and FL transmigrate into) and even learned how to draw so she could make fanart of the characters. She posted her art online and at first the comments were supportive and encouraging and she started to feel happy and build confidence again. But as more people found her blog trolls started leaving mean messages and saying her fanart was trash and she should quit. Rutas thought they were really upset by her art so she posted an apology and removed all her art. But trolls kept harassing her. They even found her personal social accounts and spamed her with abusive messages calling her worthless and telling her to just die. No matter what she did they wouldn't stop, so she ended up jumping of the roof of the apt building.
Then she transmigrated into the otome game as the FL Rutas. In the game, Rutas is the "talented commoner" trope who is bullied by the nobles when she firsts arrives at the school, until she meets the MLs. Unfortunately, because of her trauma from her previous life, she wasn't able to endure the first bullying event and ran away, which caused her to miss the game start event where she meets the first ML. As a result, she isn't able to build a connection with the protagonists and she continued being harassed and abused by the other students.
This goes on for almost a year. Then she finds the cat that we kept seeing was killed in the flashbacks. The cat was badly injured and left on the ground, which reminded her of her first life, so she saved it and treated it. But it turns out the cat could talk and tells her she was foolish to save a "terrible demon" like him. Rutas asks if he does things like beating people or cutting them with knives or forcing them to eat things they don't want to. The cat/demon says no, why would he do stupid things like that and Rutas says that that's okay then and that he's a good cat. Their interaction is really cute and funny. Rutas asks his name but he says he doesn't care about names. So Rutas says she'll give him one but suggests a bunch of silly pet names like Mimi and the demon demands she give him a more refined name and she teases him beause he had just said he didn't care about names.
Demon cat is her only friend as she continues to be bullied. Demon cat asked if she wanted him to take revenge for her, but she says no since it wouldn't change anything and also because harming people is illegal. (She was a good kid in the beginning you guys!) Demon cat says that being a good person and following the rules never helped her in either of her lives (at this point she's told him all about her original world and transmigrating) and that although he can't send her back to her world to get revenge, he has enough power to help her get revenge and do whatever she wants in their current world.
Then OG Molly shows up interrupting their conversation. She saw the bullies push Rutas into the pond so she brought her a clean uniform and told Rutas that she would teach the bullies a lesson so they'd stop harassing her. The harassment gets better for a few days but then it gets worse because the bullies blamed Rutas for "tattling on them to Molly". Rutas is initially happy though because Molly really cared about her and wanted to help her. However the bullies tell her that Molly was just doing it to look good infront of the Crown Prince and that behind her back she mocked and looked down on Rutas too.
The bullies then tell her that they killed and skinned her pet cat (the talking demon cat) and mock her about how squealed in pain and how they wish she had been around to hear it suffer. Rutas has a mental breakdown and asks them why they're doing this, why they want to hurt people who never did anything to them. In her first life, she also asked one of the internet trolls who harassed her the same question, and the bullies here give her the same answer: do they need a reason?
It looks like that's the moment where Rutas blackens and decides that humanity is trash and decides to ruin the world. That's how the most recent chapter ends.
In the first chapter before MC transmigrates we see that the otome game has a mysterious easter egg ending she didn't program where after the harem ending all of the OG MLs and OGFL kill each other. I think Rutas is trying to destroy the world by guiding things to that ending. In order to do that she needs the world to follow the story of the original game with her as the protagonist and Molly as the villain. That's why she said before that she doesn't hate Molly, it just happened to be her (who was the OG villainess in the game) but since she believed the bullies that Molly was two-faced, she doesn't feel guilty either (basing this off a prior conversation where Rutas accuses Molly of killing the cat and when Molly insists she didn't, Rutas implies that even if she didn't do it directly its still her fault).
Although I don't think her backstory completely excuses her actions, it does make her sympathetic and gives her much more understandable and interesting motives than just the cliche of making her an narcissist who wants a harem of hotties or an egomaniac with a system.
I think it's also interesting how OG Molly and OG Rutas reflect each other. Both of them are rejected by the boys they love and bullied to the point of suicide, then given new lives but go further down a dark path. MC was able to save OG Molly-as-Kama so I wonder if/how she'll save Rutas.
