The Villainess is an Apocalypse Survivor

Self-Published

Community Rating

Description

Helena Winterwell was once a noble lady of House Winterwell and the fiancée of a prince.When the prince betrayed her, Helena tried to protect what was hers. Instead, she was branded a villainess, her reputation destroyed, and her family turned their backs on her. She was sent away to a convent to live out her punishment.Five years later, her life took an unexpected turn. A dimensional fissure opened, and Helena disappeared without a trace.She awoke in another world.Year 2120.Earth, twenty years after the apocalypse.Humanity had been nearly wiped out by a mutated virus that created monsters, yet from that same curse, survivors awakened strange abilities. Helena, who had never even held a weapon before, was forced to learn how to survive.In time, she awakened a unique power called Matter Manipulation, built a family among the ruins, and found a reason to live again.Fate was not finished with her.After the final war known as the Day of Vengeance, Helena became the last survivor. She evolved into a Perfect Human, an immortal existence left alone in a silent world.For thirty years, she lived with nothing but memories and a single letter left behind by her daughter. In that letter was a promise, a date, and a time.When the promised day written in the letter finally arrived, the air before her tore open once more.Helena Winterwell was now Helena Hale.It was time for the villainess to return to the world of the living. Author Note - First novel here. I'll do my best to entertain you. if it works, great. If not, at least we went down swinging.-All Illustrations and the cover for this novel were made using AI.-

Information

Status: Ongoing
Year: 2025
Author: Empty Inside

Royal Road Stats

Rating: 4.2/ 5.0
Followers: 1,982
Views: 244,672

What readers say about The Villainess is an Apocalypse Survivor

“honestly loved it. The MC was done well, side characters weren't irritating, world building caught my attention. The author set up a lot of events so I wonder if it will eventually feel rushed or too slow waiting for them to occur. The only true demerit I'd…”
EstanforthRoyal Road5.0 / 5
“I am currently hip-deep in Villainess light novels, and so far, my largest complaint is most do not deserve the label. Almost always, the plot revolves around the socially clumsy girls seeing the error of their selfish ways and becoming [shudder] kind and s…”
Noon MartiniRoyal Road5.0 / 5

Reviews

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Community Reviews(10)

EstanforthRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
honestly loved it. The MC was done well, side characters weren't irritating, world building caught my attention.
The author set up a lot of events so I wonder if it will eventually feel rushed or too slow waiting for them to occur.
The only true demerit I'd give is the lack of contractions used. "Do not come any closer," was something I remember reading, however, it definitely felt stilted because people would generally use a contraction, especially while panicked or talking quickly.
I don't have much to add this early in the novel's timeline, I just enjoyed it and wanted to increase possible engagement so others might see
Noon MartiniRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
I am currently hip-deep in Villainess light novels, and so far, my largest complaint is most do not deserve the label.
Almost always, the plot revolves around the socially clumsy girls seeing the error of their selfish ways and becoming [shudder] kind and selfless. Because for some reason, all girls who deserve to be loved have to be pure and good or something.
F that.
I want my villainesses to render people into molecules. I want pools of blood. I want competency from these ladies. I want them unrepentant and powerful. And I want them to win. Or, by definition, they aren’t villains at all, they are just misunderstood and socially inept good girls.
Bring me more of all this plz. Let me continue to see bad girls have fun.
NoyeRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
Love this shit so much, didn’t think I would but you’re doing great! Good job and keep up the good work. I’m very much enjoying the lack of a single fuck to give in the Main character. It fits her background perfectly! I mean who else but a woman who has seen the end of the world and the death of her family to look at a Nobel and say “should I run his ass over?” For not moving his carriage.
Undead WriterRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
I have read quite a few novels like this where the main character is incredibly powerful and returns to where they came from, either through time, or like this novel, back to their world. However, this one gives a breath of fresh air to this type of genre.
Instead of just going through the motions, she is faced with actual conflict, not of physicality but mentally, although I would enjoy a few more scenes where face slapping is involved as she shows off her powers in fights. But then again, that's the action lover in me talking.
Quite a few authors actually get it right when they portray someone who has actually lived for a long time and seen things people wouldn't dream of. They are not stupid, perhaps childish at times, but not stupid. Toeing that line is incredibly difficult, but this author does that beautifully.
The truth to longevity is that purpose becomes one's past, and they do not know what is left for or of themselves afterwards. Many are just tired, grasping at straws to remind them that they are still alive, that something in them besides their heart is beating.
I feel that this author understands that and perhaps, as the story progresses, we will see what direction this story takes to remedy this hole in ones soul. A found family perhaps? New love? Learning to forgive the sins of the past? Or just finding a reason to live again? There are so many directions this could go. I don't know the future of the novel, but I have quite enjoyed what I have read so far. I wish you all the best author as these types of novels can be incredibly difficult, but also incredibly rewarding and fun to read. Thanks for something fun to enjoy, I just wish it updated a bit more often. Though, I know how difficult it is to create when many eyes are on your work. Good luck and know that you have created something worth reading!
PS. I enjoy the pictures.
PeteygRRRoyal Road
★★★★ 4.0
This story of an ex-villianess who got isekai'd TWICE is fairly decent in concept, and the MC is likable. While it initially suffers from a current RR trend that makes one-line prose the whole theme, the tone and voice of the author is steadily improving, reducing it to a manageable level.
Note: This is an update to a previous draft of the review that was fairly critical of the prose. That problem has been reduced, and so my review is updated to reflect the changes.
piqlmyuzkRoyal Road
★★★ 3.0
The premise of an older isekai protagonist returning with her powers is intriguing, but the execution doesn’t quite live up to its promise. To be fair, the summary never stated having a mature or introspective lead. Still, for a character who has supposedly endured so much, she comes across as surprisingly shallow.
At this point in the story, her only motivation seems to be finding a bed (worthy and relatable), but one pursued with puzzling effort. Given that she can summon vehicles from her storage ring, pulling out a house with a king-sized bed hardly seems implausible. The story thread at this point feels awkward, as though it’s nudging the narrative in a particular direction without much finesse.
She also suffers from one of the most frustrating traits of otome protagonists: she is denser than tungsten. This lack of awareness drains the story of tension and makes following her journey tiring at times.
That said, the novel succeeds as a light, turn-your-brain-off read. For readers who enjoy breezy escapism you might find enough here. I may be too critical to be the target audience, but I can still recommend it as a decent way to pass the time—just don’t expect depth.
WaryorWearyRoyal Road
★★★ 3.0
I’m sorry. You can’t tee me up like this without me taking the shot.
I’ve read the other reviews and the entries that spawned them just to be sure. I have no idea what’s clicked for these high reviews.
if you’ve ever had ice milk, you’ll understand what I mean when I say this story almost has a flavor. If you’ve ever had a small child tell you about a very complicated anything, you’ll get what I’m implying about the pacing and stakes. If you’ve ever woken from an exciting dream to immediately have its internal consistency dribble into the dirt, you’ve probably noticed the pattern here.
Take a character with zed constraints, give them zed motivation, give them the personality of a madman who has been ALONE for a hunDRED years (+|-), add in a setting that is standard quasi-medieval with MANA, now pretend that this REALITYWARPER who has fighter jets in her storage rings won’t be a massive explosive tsunami on this new/old world, now remember that the vague motivation is to honor her beloved family as she slaughters (no, Batman didn’t kill that mook with those Batmissiles, he sent him upstate to a farm. You can visit him if you keep being annoying.) towns worth of population, remember she needs nothing (she can turn air into wine. Up your game, Yeshua!) and do…everything? Anyhow, she’s not villainous because she wants to be (she’s wacky!), it’s because this terrible society hasn’t figured out context clues like (she Iceman/Magneto’s dirt to move her around town) (She murders a man with bread in town) (she melts a wagon and stomps a slaver to death with loose mouthed witnesses) (she transmutes whatever into masks for x amount of noble children in an Auction house in front of…Everyone). These people want to die, but can’t do it themselves— that’s the only hypothesis I can find….
Then there’s the recap entries with a different POV. And the plodding pacing of this wacky zany over the top spectacle story. The attempts to put an overwrought backstory on this… entry 36
King of SaxonyRoyal Road
★★★ 3.0
Solid hook gets you invested but you quickly realize this is a high schooler power fantasy with an insane amount of angst when you’re forced to reread the same chapter but from the pov of the villain getting tortured excessively and dying slowly and mentally agonized. This is further confirmed by the Highschool-level science of thinking you could still breathe with your entire skin turning to iron preventing chest expansion
MossbeeRoyal Road
★★★ 3.0
Firstly, I'll state that, going forward, there will be spoilers; I don't know how to make a collapsible window for them--so this is what we get. Secondly, I'm writing this on my phone so please forgive any grammatical errors. Lastly, I would terminate use of AI if you’d like to improve as an author, there is documented evidence that it reduces your ability to read and write, even if used for revision; I would know, I'm an English teacher and it's been a plight on both my discipline and students.
So to get into the meat of it I'll start with the concept. It's fun, I like matter manipulation as a power but I think we need some limits. As of this moment, the MC may well be a god, as literally nothing is powerful enough to harm her, or her charges. There need to be limits if you want tension, or it needs to balanced out with their personality, see (New Life As A Max Level Archmage).
For the plot progression, I'll say this; it is both too slow and too fast at times, we're flip-flopping between dense exposition, and extremely scrunched plot beats. Exposition is fine it just needs to be in doses; everyone who writes wants to tell everyone who reads about their cool world. But spacing out these moments of exposition would benefit the story, and give more space for actual development. Next, we should consider scenes that are actually necessary and those that are not--we do not need a chapter that simply retells the prior chapter from the villains view. Furthermore, starting your story with our character waking up is far less interesting than starting in the action. There is a term in creative writing spaces called "in medias res" which is Latin for "in the midst of it" perhaps if you'd started with the portal or with her betrayal you'd have a more interesting beginning. I also think that having her go back in time with a depreciated version of her powers could serve your story better. It'd put her back in the prologue where everything started giving the MC an opportunity to
MacMiskennRoyal Road
★★ 2.0
The magic of books lies in our willingness to believe the unbelievable. - This one strecthes that too far into being ridiculous, and it results in the suspension of belief.
I had a hard time with the torture and (un)realism of turning someone's skin into iron and leaving them to die. The book presents itself as hard magic/sci-fi at first, but I decided to roll with it.
Then the MC pulls a motorcycle out of storage, and decides to ride it in a fantasy world without proper roads. Fair enough, in theory her described ability could make roads. Then we get the story of how that motorcycle was made by a crafter in our world, who started out at the bottom and knew nothing of motorcycles. And OH it runs on beast cores, which whe has "enough" of in her spatial rings. Bear in mind that "Earth" had an apocalypse and she was only there for a hundred years.
(Oh right, she also has fighter jets in her storage rings, but wisely decides against using one, because she wants to experience travel the old school way...on a motorcycle...in a medieval fantasy world)
She then proceeds to ride the motorcycle right up to a caravan camp, and then dazzle the leaders.
I stopped reading there.