Soldier and Whitesmith

Is a person still a person even if they've been replaced? A whitesmith in a certain small village has been making artificial metal bodies for the village's soldiers, and allowing them to keep on living... The whitesmith has also been replacing the body parts of a young female soldier with artificial ones. But each time the whitesmith replaces a body part, it feels as though something is lost, and she becomes less and less human. Can the young woman and the whitesmith manage to hold on to their humanity, and continue living in this cruel world that's so repulsive that it's beautiful?

Source: Shueisha