If I'm not mistaken, the reason why Penelope did have the will of making her decision without relying on what the system provided was because she chose the "father" answer in earlier chapters, as Penelope once said, if she continued to stay and called them by their title and not by family, nothing will change and her death is inevitable. Honestly I want the Duke and everyone else to suffer for making Penelope's life hell the moment the Duke dragged her to the household as the daughter's replacement. The servants used Penelope as a scapegoat to vent their frustration and assumed that the Duke wouldn't bat an eye of it at least until that incident with Donna the ex-cook, I'd like to see how the knights were punished considering not only did they slander a lady's name but also dared to lie to the Duke himself or rather trying to make him look like a fool.