My memory’s a little bad, but I think the light novel was supposed to have the village chief observe at how well treated and dressed Satou’s demihuman slaves were, and make a reasonable assumption/statement that if Satou bought his granddaughter, she’d live far more comfortably than she could in a ruined village.
EDIT: Just remembered the nice grandpa gave his granddaughter his coat, which is why it dragged along the ground. Although the grandpa and the rest of the villagers had the (Starving) status ailment, the children were skinny and gaunt, but fed just enough to avoid it. Poor old man.
This isn’t even the worst of it yet.
Since this is a spoiler that doesn’t affect the plot, I’ll share this without using the spoiler tag. A little deeper into the territory, there’s a community of children abandoned by families that couldn’t afford to feed everyone, led by a pair of grandparents that left their home to avoid being a burden on their own family. Expecting to die in the wilderness, the old couple ended up encountering the community of abandoned children, and now look after them, feeding them dumplings made from edible grass...