When the game started, MC's first response is "Oh, I'm trapped in a VN," which means that at all times, he has to battle the impulse to assume that everyone he's interacting with is a fictional character, and thus he can't actually hurt them in a real sense. Then you have a clearly conflicting dual nature with some of his thoughts, to the extent that they outright overwrite one another repeatedly. The evolutioin of the MC is definitely happening, but I have always gotten the vibe that he's gonna get worse before he starts to get better, and any progress for the better at this stage is, at best, temporary.