Shindou looked around the hallway they were swimming down as he followed Kirino to the library. He still couldn't stop staring at everything around him!
He suddenly bumped into Kirino, who had stopped, therefore pushing him into the door of the library.

While Kirino, easily being able to regain his balance in the water, didn't even touch the ground, but on the other hand Shindou tumbled into one of the shelves causing the books contained into it to fall on him.
Kirino, hearing the loud bang turned to Shindou and started laughing upon seeing what had befallen him. Even Akari, who was just leaving the library with a stack of books in her hands couldn't help but giggle.
"Very funny." Shindou groaned, shoving books off of him.
Meanwhile, Kirno abandoned Shindou and called to the royal librarian about the book he needed before helping Shindou dig himself out.
"I'm sorry Prince Kirino.", the royal librarian, Roiyaru Shisho, said in reply. "That book was thrown out earlier today due to major damage from the recent attack that rocked the palace."
Kirino frowned, "Well there goes that idea." He sighed, moving a stack of books that he's picked up off of Shindou onto a nearby table.
"Hey, Kirino," Shindou spoke up, looking curiously at a book that he'd picked up off his head, but not reading it. He turned the cover to face Kirino, "What's this? It's written in some other language."
Kirino bent down to look at the book before sucking in a breath and grabbing the book, eargerly flipping through it, "It's another book titles 'The god rulers: Iia queen of the magical arts, Tios and the undefeatable army!" He exclaimed.
"What's it written in?" Shindou asked, getting up now, having enough books off his that that rest of them slid off as he stood up.
"Old Atlantian I think. It's a form of Atlantian writing that was used before modern Atlantian, but nowadays it's only taught to the royal family."
"Atlantis has its own language?" Shindou thought aloud.
Kirino smiled at his friend, "Yeah, but only modern Atlantian is really only used anymore! It's kind of like a second language. Except in Atlantis, it's mostly spoken there."
"There are other types?"
Kirino gave a brief nod in return, "Yup, there's Modern Atlantian, which is spoken now, old Atlantian, which is only taught to the royal family, and then ancient Atlantian is long lost and impossible to translate."
Shindou nodded as Kirino explained when the pink haired merman suddenly frowned. He closed the book and handed it back to Shindou, "I just realized, this book was shelved in the myths and legends sections. It's a fiction book." He explained with a sigh before swimming to the history section, leaving Shindou to flip through the book, even though he couldn't actually read it…
Kirino was soon interrupted by Shindou shoving the back cover of the book from before in his face,
"Kirino, I'm not sure 'cause it's kind of faded, but doesn't the books label say that it should be in the ancient history section!?"
Kirino's eyes widened as he grabbed the book again, "Y-you're right! It does! Why was it over there?" He swam to the desk where Roiyaru was standing behind, flipping through some books. He showed her the book that he was holding, "Isn't this book supposed to be in the ancient history section? Why was it in the myths and legends?" He asked.
Roiyaru took a quick glance at the book before shrugging, "I'm not sure. I never misplace books, and the only other people in here were me Ranpu*, and Akari, who was picking up some of your favorite novels to help cheer you up."
Kirino smiled when he heard what Akari was here for, but quickly reverted back to a serious expression, "I wonder why it was mis-shelved. I don't remember Roiyaru ever mis-shelving anything, ever since I was little…"
Shindou shrugged, "Well we have the book, so it doesn't really matter. What does it say?"
Kirino only read about one page before frowning again.
"What now?" Asked Shindou, seeing Kirino frown, "Everything beyond the overview are pieces from different manuscripts, all of them are written in ancient Atlantian. There's no way to know what it says."

"um, Prince Kirino?" Asked a shy voice.
Kirino turned to the source, and a young tanned merman with short white hair and ice-blue eyes with a tail that matched his eyes was hovering nearby,
"Ranpu? What is it?"
The merman, now known as Ranpu handed Kirino a book, "This book was on the list of pre-planned assigned books that you were supposed to be given next week I heard your conversation while I was cleaning up the shelves nearby and I thought it might be useful." In his hands was a book titled, 'Cuttlefish gorge'. One page in particular was bookmarked.
Kirino paled upon reading the title, "C-Cuttlefish gorge!? Why would this book need to be read again?" Ranpu had read every single book in the library over 3 times, and he always knew which book to read when looking for information.
"Cuttlefish gorge? What could possibly be so awful about a place like that?" Shindou chuckled.
Kirino gulped, "Cuttlefish gorge is a deep trench in the ocean floor near Atlantis. It's named after a thick layer of cuttlefish that's always crowded near the top."
"What's so bad about it? What's under the cuttlefish?" Shindou asked again.
"What's just it," started Kirino, "No one knows what's under the cuttlefish. Very Merfolk who has gone in has never come back out."
"Oh" Was all Shindou could say.
Ranpu spoke up again, "The book talks mostly about the crowds of cuttlefish attracted to the location. It's also a strange writing style. It switches between Japanese and old Atlantian, and the handwriting used to write it is done in two different styles. One for the Japanese writing, and another for the old Atlantian. Almost like it was written by 2 different people. I couldn't read some of it, since the royal librarians are only taught the basics of old Atlantian, but one line in particular seemed strange." He paused, "It said that cuttlefish gorge was the least threatening place in the entire ocean. After that it moves on to a long piece of text written in old Atlantian, but I could only read the title. I think you'll find it interesting." Ranpu finished before swimming off to the pile of books that had fallen on Shindou and began putting them back on the shelves. Shindou could've sworn he saw Akari glaring daggers at Ranpu through the window, but he just passed it off as some sea plant moving out of the corner of his eye.

"This is…amazing!" Kirino exclaimed, "It talks about an Oracle who lives at the bottom of cuttlefish gorge that can fluently speak ancient Atlantian!" He looked to Ranpu, "Ranpu, where did you find this!?"
Ranpu glanced at Kirino, "In your father's book vault." He replied quickly before going back to his work.

Kirino gulped, "That means," He lifted up the book with 'Iia and Tios' in the title, "If we want to find out who Iia and Tios are, that means that we have to go to cuttlefish gorge…"

*Ranpu is Roiyaru's assistant

And so the plot thickens! Ranpu knows more than he's letting on, and Akari doesn't seem like that! What could be going on between the two of them? Secrets are revealed from the books of the former kings vault, and a strange multilingual book surfaces~
Next chapter:
They leave for Cuttlefish Gorge
They fight their way through crowds of harmless Cuttlefish, but little do they know that worse is coming for them...

Also, js, whenever a misc. background OC surfaces, you should put the name in Japanese to English google translate. Almost all of them have actual japanese words as their names, and there are some fun things hidden in them~