MC is still acting like he
has to play the game like the devs intended ...
. Say, he has a boatload of stuff he could had used in this situation ( say , he could use his invisible sword to block the knife attack just by putting himself in the way, for a 2 seconds of thought solution ) or he could even simply block the knife girl of even getting close of Kusora ( he is physically much larger than her and presumably stronger as well.) Also , he now knows she has a knife and where she has it hidden, so he could even disarm her easily before she even thought on picking it ...
My point is that he
doesn't need to get to that VN style "choose now" state, but he acts like he does. Maybe he just played too much Hentai VN to even think he could have a choice in the matter ...