Board Thread:Quest Board/@comment-33207690-20190729154154/@comment-5494183-20190729222417

I would vote for keep it unknown.

This is probably nitpicking, but in chapter 191, what Merlin uses in the japanese version is "person/people" (人); this could be interpreted as she referring to any race, as all of them, no matter how many years they can live, are mortal.

In the same chapter, after Merlin reveals her real name, the others can't discern what she said, to what Merlin says that no human can pronounce it. This could mean that is a non-human language or is a dead language of which she is the last person who can speak it.

In the movie, though it's non-canon, when Merlin describes to Solaad the races of the Sins, even when she directly calls Escanor a human and Ban a former human, she is ambiguos about her own race saying that she is something similar to a human. If her race was already revealed, why add such ambiguity?

Also, as you said, she could be human, semi-human, a former human (like Ban), a wizard or maybe a hybrid of a human and something else; it cannot be straight confirmed any of these options, but cannot be denied either. That is why I think it should remain "unknown".