壳中少女 压缩

The protagonist of the story, Rue Balot, is an underage prostitute living in Mardock City. 　　Shell, an ambitious casino owner, picked up the helpless girl and gave Balot everything—a fabricated origin, a fabricated past and present, thoroughly rewriting her entire personality as if starting from scratch. Balot learned to seal her heart within a shell, gradually growing accustomed to her enclosed, day-to-day existence. 　　Though Balot knew she should be grateful to Shell for giving her everything, she couldn’t help wanting to know who she truly was. Yet whenever she recalled her tragic past, she could only feel gratitude for her present life. One day, Balot couldn’t resist searching for her own history on a computer. That single mistake changed her life forever. Upon discovering her actions, Shell decided to burn her to death. 　　After struggling on the brink of death, Balot barely survived. Dr. Ufukuk, the official in charge of the Mardock City incident, revived her by reconstructing her entire skin with reinforced fibers. However, she now faces a new choice: Mardock City has an ordinance, an emergency decree aimed at preserving human life—the Mardock Emergency Ordinance 09, which grants special permission for the use of abilities derived from prohibited science and technology. Can Balot obtain such power? How will she survive from now on? Her reason for existence, the cause of her attempted murder—she will confront all these harsh truths head-on.