The first collection of short stories centred around Highschool DXD, originally serialised in Dragon Magazine and republished in 2010 as the eighth volume of the light novels. The first two of these short stories were adapted into Episodes 6 and 7 respectively of the anime's first season.
Life.1: "The Work of a Devil"
This short story takes place after Volume 1, and was adapted into the second half of the anime's sixth episode accordingly. It centres around Rias helping Issei successfully complete a contract.After failing to complete a contract for Mil-tan, Rias decides to help her [Pawn] out. They visit a client named Susan, who turns out to be an armour-clad foreigner obsessed with samurai. She has a crush on a boy at her university named Horii, but has had trouble communicating her feelings to him. Issei suggests that she writes Horii a love letter, but when she does so, she sends it to him by attaching it to an arrow and firing it at him. Horii, however, turns out to have a similar infatuation with samurai armour, and the two confess their love for each other. Rias tears up at the heartwarming moment, while Issei remains utterly confused.
Life.2: "Familiar's Requirement"
This short story takes place after Volume 2, but was adjusted to come before it in the anime, getting adapted into the anime's seventh episode. It features the group out in a forest on the hunt for a familiar.In the animenote , Rias decides to get Asia and Issei familiars. However, the Student Council, another group of devils at Kuoh Academy, who have a rivalry with the research club, also want a familiar for their new member, Saji. The decide to face off in tennis, with the winner getting to choose a familiar. When the match ends up being a draw, a tie-breaker dodgeball game is announced. After the school gymnasium is partially-destroyed by the ensuing demonic-power-related damage, the Occult Research club wins.
The group visit the Familiar Forest, where they meet their completely unhelpful tour guide, the Familiar Master. Issei finds a Sprite Dragon and wants to choose it, until his attention is grabbed by a Smile familiar whose only purpose is to destroy the girls' clothing. Issei tries to take the slime with him, but when it attacks the girls in the group, it it killed by the Sprite Dragon. Asia chooses to take home the Sprite Dragon, whom she names Rassei.
Tropes in this volume include:
- Dirty Old Man: Issei sadly reminisces of an old man at a park who displayed obscene picture shows to the seven-year-old protagonist and other children while teaching him the appeal of sucking on breasts. Issei was then appalled when he came one day to find the man under arrest.
- Take That!: The Tohji is a middle-aged man who dresses and talks like Ash Ketchum/Satoshi is a not-too-kind jab at the Pokémon fandom, particularly adults who refuse to "let go." Ironically, Ichiei Ishibumi admits that he's a fan of Pokémon as a whole in the afterword, and his artist told his editor to make that story. Also, in another bout of irony, The Tohji's Japanese VA Hisao Egawa voiced several characters in Pokémon.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Rias is disappointed in Issei when he tries to choose a slime creature that does nothing but eat women's clothing (and molest them by side-effect) as a familiar. This is after both the Familiar Master and she herself reminded him how important it was to choose a familiar based on utility outside of perversion.
